The Force Unleashed: Sacrifices
by darthritter86
Summary: The Republic is gone. The Purge has raged for a decade now and Darth Vader's apprentice is still training to become a Jedi Hunter. Starkiller is given the tasked to kill a Rebel Senator, but finds more than what he bargained for with a Togruta Princess.
1. Chapter 1

Note: This set in the Great Jedi Purge, between the movies, a decade before the Corellian Treaty. Some might dispute Galen Marak's age as a teenager at this time, but that's the closes it's going to come to anything AU-like. Everything, EVERYTHING, else was painstakingly researched and analyzed. If you really have a problem with it, some reason, write a review or comment.

Read & Review!

Disclaimer: George Lucas holds the rights holds the rights to anything Star Wars like and his not sharing them with me. That's ok, because this short in not making any money for me. I wish it did, though.

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Dark, blacken skies hung over had of the ancient industrial district of Corusant. The countless of factories packed 'The Works', blotting out the sun in the district with thousands of chimneys and exhaust pipes, some facilities as old as the Galactic City itself. Though, now it was called the 'Imperial City' and the numerous factories mostly abandon as hundreds of companies moved out to the Outer Rim for a cheaper, more _economical_ work-base. The Phylon Metal Foundry rose up through the dark clouds, a ghostly hallow tower it's former glory. It's design was unorthodox and stupendous, climbing high into the sky with three massive chimneys circling around the even higher bulk of the central tower complex. The tower's shape edges and pointed apex remained one of a broadsword piercing from the depths of Corsucant, slicing the black clouds with it's dark gun-metal surface.

The Metal Foundry was built centuries before the rise of the Empire and had a great influence on the minds of young imperial architect. Some the Empire's most prominent buildings mimicked it's design, including the Imperial Palace. It sad site, however, to see the Phylon Metal Foundry nowadays, it's towers crumbling and it's insides being gutted out by construction droids. If a _private sponsor_ hadn't taken up the expenses for the Metal Foundry, Phylon Freight would have had started tearing down the walls as well. Thankfully the massive building remained intact for future architects to enjoy and seek inspiration from.

However, Darth Vader had much more in mind for the Metal Foundry.

Positioned on the Seventy-Second Smelting floor, two figures faced each other atop a raised platform, blazing blades of light in hand. One figure raised his humming purple lightersaber up into a defensive stance, violet cascading across his light tan robes and dark skin. The other stood lose, his crimson blade held behind him in a reverse-grip. He looked no older than boy, a youngster in this mid-teenage years, but in his relaxed stance protected the confidence of a seasoned dualist. His crummy gray clothes cast a pure contrast to his pale white skin, similar to his opponents light robes and black skin contrast however in inverted tones. Their height, though, marked them most drastically apart. The purple-bladed fighter's bald top rose a head taller than his youthful adversary's buzz cut crown.

There was moment of perfect stillness, a quite atmosphere seeming frozen in time. Suddenly, the boy fighter rushed forward in a blurring speed straight to the taller foe. With a tooth clenched growl, the youth pivoted his shoulder blades and sent his red saber into a arch at his opponent's middle. Violet clashed with crimson and the boy's blade was parried as quickly as it had came. He didn't let it phase him, though, and with flick of his wrist he made another slash with his saber. Again it was parried. The young warrior, never letting his momentum slow, started rolling his lightsaber between each hand and whirled his crimson blade into circling arches. The darker fighter, however, merely swapped the red light away whenever it neared his person, keeping the deadly dance of purple and crimson alive as the boy scowled and grunted in increasing frustration. With wronging the taller figure sliced up hard, throwing the youth's blade above his head and opening him to attack. In slit-second, the dark skin opponent had his violet saber down and reared back for a thrust. The boy gasped! But as he gasped, instinct took over and he dropped down to his elbow as a purple hum raced past his face. As he landed, the younger fighter lashed out with foot for the other's legs to kick out. Unfortunately, there was no legs to be kicked as the figure leapt from his position and somersault to the opposite side of the platform.

The boy quickly jumped up to stand on the platform, raising his saber in defense across his mid-section. The darker fighter hesitated for a moment, then launch himself forward at the youth, who reciprocated with his charge and addition battle-cry. At the center the platform, the two met. A blind second of white light flew about the room as the blades roar against each other. The boy took a firm stance and pushed on his lightsaber, summoning his all strength with rasped breaths through clenched teeth, desperate to win this some struggle of dominance. His opponent was equally focused as he scowled down at the young fighter with his passionless eyes. Durasteel panels on the platform suddenly started to peel and curl away from the pair as the youth called out deeper and deeper to the unifying power of the universe, **the Force**.

With a yeah, the boy broke away and flipped backwards. While in mid-air, he shot a out with the Force at the dark skin opponent. The other figure reached forward and countered the blast his own abilities, charging at the youth as landed. The young fighter quickly side stepped the attacker and slashed an arch as he passed. The opponent pivoted on his heel and parried the cut, then sent a powerful blow down at the boy's head. The youth dropped and rolled to the rear of the figure, popping up with a whirl slice. The darker fighter speedily throw his purple blade back and protected his back from the attack and twisted with a counter, though the young fighter was already a few paces back when he did. Rushing to his opponent, the youth had just had enough of this fight. Readying for to parry another red slash, dark skin figure was caught in surprise as the boy leapt up, stomped down on his light robed thigh with a foot, and springboard into a flip over head. The young warrior turned in the air and sliced through the other fighter's shoulder, lopping off his arm before landing on his feet. The darker opponent bellowed and fell to his knees, gripping his armless arm-socket. With a smirk, the boy walked around to the front of his opponent as deactivated his saber's crimson blade and folded his arms before him.

"Well done, Master!" The youth's opponent proclaimed with glee, his taking a robotic and uneven tone, "I truly thought would have you this time and finally kill you!"

"Not today, PROXY... ..." The boy related as his other got to his feet. In a dazzling display of lights that washed over the fighter, the dark skin and light robes faded away and a stripped-down, one armed droid took his opponents place, "I'm surprise that Mace Windu with his Vaapad form couldn't put up that harder of a fight."

"Master, in all honesty, that was only the first setting on Training Module J-5. The second setting should prove to be _much_ harder!"

"Then, I'll just have to fighter harder" The young warrior replied in his hushed voice. He raised a cocked eyebrow at the droid's missing limb, "Maybe we should find your arm first-"

"**Starkiller**" A sudden boom called from the ceiling. The boy turned to the center of the platform as blue rays poured down and formed into the familiar long robed, dark armored demi-god of the youth's life. Even before the holo-image took full shape, the young warrior dropped to one knee and bowed as PROXY fell back down to his knees. Though, the sound of his mechanical breathes, in and out, was all the announcement the Dark Lord needed.

"My master..."

"**You have done well today, young one**.** Everyday you find more and more power through the Force**.** But your mind loses focus and you forget the passion inside of you**!!"

"Master...Forgive me... ..." The boy shook with despair. Losing Vader's approval was like losing the oxygen around him, he couldn't breath.

"**Remember, youngling**..." The Sith prodded a finger down at the youth as his tone filled with righteousness, "**PEACE is the lie**! **Remember your passion and the Dark Side will always be with you**." The young warrior pushed his mind to every feeling he had every felt and welled it up inside the pile of his belly. It burned there as raw energy and the boy sensed himself getting stronger, "**That is good for now**. **One day, you will truly become my apprentice**. **For now, I have other users for you**..."

"What is your will, Lord Vader?"

"**A band of rebel politicians and undesirables have caused the Emperor to question the need of my new Super Star Destroyer design, as well as my continued expenses in the Works**. **Eliminate the group's leader, Senator Amurth of Shili**."

"It shall be done...my master..."

* * *

The thing about roast gornt was that it was all about the sauce. Most people think that an damn gravy can be used to cover the gornt chunks, but if one were to asked Inari Dakini there was only one place in all of Coruscant that made the sauce right: Zhar's Dinner in the Twi'lek neighborhood, Invisec. It wasn't a nice part of the Alien Zone - though one couldn't say any part was - however, for Inari it was just another one of her stomping grounds. All long the walkways and shops a rainbow of yellow, green, blue, and red skinned Twi'lek could be seen, hurrying to some late evening task or just chatting away with old friends. The occasional patrol of stormtroopers and Coruscant Guards sliced through the crowds, there lack of head bound **lekku** tentacles marked them as outsiders even more so then their blasters and armor. Inari never had that problem, though. Being a Togruta, she had head-tails of her own...be it they were a little...small. Inari's Uncle Amurth always side that they were cute, along with her short montral, and her father said that Togruta would take a little longer to grow out there lekku. He said that they made her look cute, too. Everyone said that her head-tails were _cute_.

_Well, everybody, maybe I don't what to be CUTE!!_ Inari screamed silently in her mind.

She sighed. Zhar's Dinner was an escape for Inari from life. Between being the daughter of Shili's High Chieftain, living with a well mean but annoy human senator, and going to humancentric Hirkenglade Middle School, the Togruta girl was a little taxed. However, at the Dinner, Inari was Zhar's little Orange Nerra or Orange Sister - nerra is Twi'leki for 'sibling', Inari eventually found out and the moment Zhar made with his lekku denoted feminine connotation. The girl would learn more and more about Twi'lek every day at Zhar's and would dress more and more so like Twi'lek females too. Uncle Amurth made big fuss about her high, open side skirts and revealing tank tops. He told Inari to dress more like a respectable Togruta. The girl suspected that her uncle had more of problem with Inari garbed as a Twi'lek than the fourteen-year-old dressing like a hussy.

Inari walked around last corner and the Dinner finally came into view. Zhar's was far from a majestic Upper City restaurant that Uncle Amurth took her to, with there fancy table dressings and...health standards... ... Ok, it wasn't the best place to eat, but at least Inari didn't need dress to impress at Zhar's Dinner. Stepping inside, the Togruta girl hit with the smells of rycrit stew and freshly made munch-fungus bread that instantly making her pallet water. The grimy Dinner was packed with Twi'leks of blues and greens, all enjoying the traditional Twi'lek food and cook specials. Inari noticed the chunky, gray skinned Zhar wave to her to come over to the counter.

"Little Orange Nerra!" The old Twi'lek cried with a warm small, lekku twitching as he spoke, "I almost thought you weren't come 'n."

"I almost thought I wasn't either." Inari smirked wearily and jumped up on a stool and leaned her elbows on the counter, resting her head atop of her hands, "But you know me. Only a blazing heat storm could keep me from my roast gornt..._Sigh_... ..."

"What's wrong, Nerra? Something with a the humans at school, again??"

"If only" Hands dropping flat atop the counter, the Togruta girl stared with pleading eyes to Zhar, "Do you think that locking your child in their room is the act of a caring parent, Zhar?! Uncle Amurth said he didn't want be coming down to the Twi'lek neighborhood by myself anymore, and then he locked the door of my room! I know Uncle Amurth is odd, but **come on**!!"

"Amurth is an odd human, yes" The gray Twi'lek replied, scratching his cheek thoughtfully, "but I think he did it _because_ he loves you. The good Senator took you in and cared for you like his own since your father sent you to the Imperial City."

"Yeah, I know... "

It was the truth. Inari's father sent her to Coruscant to receive a better education from the major Core World. Shili had fine schools, but the High Chieftain wanted more for his daughter, the best. And that was on Coruscant. Inari didn't have much room to object, though, her father had just up and decided. Suddenly, one day, he went up to the girl and said that she was moving to Coruscant and before she knew it, Inari was on the capital meet her 'Uncle' Amurth. And here she is three years later. The human Senator representing Shili in the Imperial Senate was very kind in the most part, if a little strict... NO! He was too strict, Inari surmised. And too Togruta!! Ever since Amurth was stationed on Shili as a Judicial he went "native". Traditional Togruta robes, never wearing shoes - Inari wore shoes. Coruscant was home of millions of different alien and was notorious for public urination. You shouldn't touch the ground with **ANY **part of your body - and it Amurth could, he would grow headtails and montrals. It was probably why Shili's leaders choose him to be their representative, a human to get the anti-alien Senate's sway while being totally loyal to Togruta.

"Hey Leth! Get Little Orange Nerra's gornt!!" Zhar yelled to the back of the Dinner. The swinging doors that lead to the kitchen pushed open and a young male Twi'lek walked out with plate cubed meat in one hand and a cup of dark sauce. Oh...that sauce!! Inari was on the edge of her seat as gornt and cup were sat before, but she restrained herself just long enough to greet her friend.

"Hi, Leth!" With that, the Togruta girl dumped the sauce across the plate of meat and started digging into the gornt. The sweet, milky sauce played a heavenly number in Inari's mouth as her teeth chew thoughtfully on the gornt. The girl didn't need to try alcohol, tobacco, or spice, roast gornt at Zhar's Dinner was all the euphoria the Togruta needed.

"Hi...Inari...!" The girl heard Leth replied clumsy. Inari looked up to the Twi'lek and smiled, sauce running down her chin, before going back to the gornt. Leth was a year or so older than her and a red skin Lethan, hence his name. Lethan Twi'lek were rare in the universe and were normally the target of slaveries, though males were usually ingored...unless you had a slave master who didn't like women. Leth continued in a nerious voice, "Umm...You know I got an-another essay published by the Twi'lek Cultural Center...!"

"Ha ha ha! That's our Leth!!" Zhar exclaimed as he patted the young Twi'lek atop the head, "Me and wife couldn' be prouder of our boy."

"Wow, Leth! What's that, your twelfth essay published? That's amazing!" Inari looked in awe at red skin youth, quickly whipping the sauce off her chin. Leth was always nervous when she saw him and stumbled over simple words when they talked, but when it came to literature subjects she made her feel the lesser of the two. There was a lot of things Inari could do - like sneak out of her room whenever her uncle locked the girl in - but when it came to writing, Leth was the king. He was the main reason the Togruta girl knew so much about Twi'lek culture, with all the books he read, "Someday, I'm get you to tutor me on essay and grammar stuff. I'm really hopeless with it all."

"Oh! It's really an easy subject." Leth smiled and rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. Then his eyes flicked wide as he realized what he was saying, "N-not that your stupid, Inari! NO NO!! Anyone c-could have a problem with that stuff! It's just I-I'm really good at it and you are... HA HA HA HA....mmh...!"

"Well, first we'll have to see I can come back here first." Inari sat her cheek again her propped hand with a huff, "My uncle is definitely going to flip when I get home. I'll probably only be able to come do here if I had an armed bodyguard."

"Or a boyfriend!" Zhar barked a snicker, slapping the Lethan youth on the back, "How about you, son? I wouldn't want to thrust Nerra to some stranger."

Leth looked up to his gray father with look of pure terror. Inari giggled at the funny idea. The two were just good friends as far as she cared, and the Togruta girl danced with the thought of finding herself a boyfriend, especial in Leth. If the girls at her school had every seen Leth and her together, they might have came to that conclusion and bug Inari about it class. But to her, Leth was just her awkward acting comrade of teens age, another friend from Zhar's Dinner. What would Inari want in boyfriend, anyway? The thought pledge the girl for a minute as she watch Leth and Zhar clean up the empty dishes that at once held roast gornt and beautiful, beautiful sauce.

_Let's see...he would have to be handsome, of course. Couldn't be too rash, seeing that I'm rash enough, and would have to complament me almost all the time. Maybe be welling to pay for things I want, not roses or anything big...just...you know stuff. OH! And he should be the kind's person in the whole galaxy. Not even be able to hurt a fly... ..._

* * *

_**SLAP**_!!!

"Damn! That has to be the eighth fly I killed down here!! I hate using the trash chute..."

Starkiller was knee deep in 500 Republica's waste, even the better half of society had garbage...smelly garbage. The young warrior focused on his feelings, letting his passion recieved from fulfilling his master's wishes ease his mind away from stench. It was simple task finding the trash unite that the senator's waste fell into and even easier finding his chute. All he had to do know now was climb the half a kilometer straight up the narrow passageway that smelled like Hutt with a stomach flu. Starkiller was focused, though. Nothing would stop him from destroying Amurth, especial not garbage. Point the mini-glowrod in his hand and looking to the ceiling of the chamber, the boy a number of chutes to many different apartments. Each shaft was probably about the right size for the young warrior to fit through...probably. In the dim light, Starkiller made out a series of number codes next to each chute.

"PROXY" The boy said into his wrist bound comlink, "I'm in the trash unite. Which leads the Senator?"

"I am searching through the Imperial records now, Master... ...It appears, from the building's floorplans and schematics, that if you were to go up service chute Five-R-One-One-Three-Eight is Senator Amurth's." Starkiller walked a little down through the waste, scan each set of numbers until he found the appropriate shaft. Relay that he was at the chute, his droid replied happily, "Ah, good, Master. Know all you have to do is shimmy up the chute five hundred and twenty six meters to the Senator's apartment."

"Thanks for remaining me... " The young warrior try to refocus on his feelings again. He tighten the ties on his hooded cloak and felt along his belt that his lightsaber was secure, "Are you in place?"

"Yes, Master. In in the open-air taxi speeder you stole and I'm waiting on a landing platform on the building across from Five Hundred Republica."

"What do you look like..." An odd request for a droid that the boy knew from early childhood, but not so if the robot was a holodroid who could be _anyone_.

"I'm in the form of a dark brown Wookiee with a large white splotch across my chest. You should be able to spot me even at that height, Master."

"Copy that. A little flamboyant, though..."

"Oh, Master, do be careful. I would hate for you to die before I had a chance to kill you!"

As unsettling as that sounded, Starkiller took it with pleasant smile. Perhaps the only constant in his life, PROXY goal of terminating the boy was one of his longest on going memories he had. He had little foundation in life given that homes and hiding places were abandon as quickly as the youth had arrived at them, and Vader was more of a force of nature, coming going whenever he pleased. PROXY was his rock, loyal to his every command and to his primary directive of kill the boy. It was far from a secret, the droid talked about it all the time. Good night, Master, he would say, I'll must probably try to kill you in the morning. Pleasant dreams. Kindness and cold blooded murder, both seem to put Starkiller at ease when it came from PROXY.

"Here I go." The boy related, pushing the hood back as he grabbed the edges of the shaft. The hood would only have gotten into the way had he kept is up. The trash chute was even narrower then he originally assumed, but the youth wiggled and pushed off his feet on the chute's sides, starting his long climb up. The shaft seemed to be lined with a sticky substance and it smelled of rotten food. The staff must not wash the chutes often, a something that Starkiller wouldn't mind dicussing about with one them and lightsaber. Sigh...at least in wasn't septic waste chute. The young warrior activated his comlink again and spoke to his droid in a strained voice, "PROXY...track my signal. I don't want... I don't want to get stuck in here and have no way out."

"Of course, Master.... ... Master? Would you like a sitrep on Senator Amurth?"

"Sure! Go a ahead!" The boy struggled as he got further up the chute. Putting his mini-glowrod into his mouth, he resolved to push with both is hands and feet.

"Very well. Senater Amurth was born on the planet Grizmallt, one of the Core Worlds, in the year Forty-Five Before the Rise of the Empire. In the year Twenty-Three, he joined the Judicial Department and worked his way up to Commander in the Starfleet's Logistic Corps. In the year Ninteen, he was assigned to a Logistic Corps depot on Shili. In the year Nineteen, six months later he left the Corps to, quote: "Find his past life." End quote. In year Zero, Amurth was elected Senator of Shili by the planet's Chieftain Council. In the year Four After the Rise of the Empire, he took guardianship of Princess Inari Dakini, daughter of Troguta Chieftain Dakini-"

"Wai, WHA...??" Starkiller halted his climb and took the glowrod from his between his teeth, "What are you say? Someone else is up there?!"

"Why, yes, Master! Princess Inari Dakini, born in the year Seven Before the Rise of the Empire. Daughter of-"

"Is she in the apartment." On the other end of the com, PROXY paused as he sliced into the building's security systems.

"... I believe only the senator is currently in the apartment. Giving the age, a weight of Four-Eight kilograms, and species of Inari Dakini, the heat signature detected is too warm."

"Any idea if she's coming back soon?"

"Master, I'm a holodroid, not a soothsayer." With a frustrated grunt, the boy gripped his teeth around the mini-glowrod and started going up the chute again.

_First I have to wade around in waste, then crawl up a half kilometer shaft straight up, now I have an unknown possible walking in me when I make the kill._ Starkiller shook his mind free of his frustrations and focused on his deeper latent hate and the pride he bring to Lord Vader. _My master will surely consider making me his true apprentice after this mission. Perhaps give me better living contains in our next hideaway._

After an hour or so of pushing and pull up the chute, the boy reached the top of the shaft. The glowrod in his mouth revealed a small door directly in front of him which he should be about to fit through. Putting out his light, the youth secured his footing and felt along the outline of the door. If he remembered right, the switch to the door release should be... Without a warning, the chute's door opened and filled the shaft with light. It wasn't of his doing, someone else must have opened the door from the other side. The boy instinctively shut his eyes from the suddenly illumination, but quickly forced them open again to meet whatever entity that had discovered him.

"Oh my! A human youth in the trash chute!!" The mechanical voice related, feminine and evenly toned in comparison to PROXY's. From what Starkiller could see, it was a blue protocol droid, "This is far from the usual. Might I inquire as to way had lead to you being here, young master?"

"Help me out of here." The boy commanded.

The droid, knowing nothing other than following orders reached into the chute and gentled grasped the youth's shoulders. The young warrior felt himself being pulled away as his head exited the shaft. The room the door conjoined to was white, white walls, white tile floors, white counters and cabins, white. As Starkiller pulled himself out further, he noticed a medium sized table and a chrome colored conservator. He had ended up in the kitchen...figures. The boy turned back to the protocol droid as it tossed what looked like old leftover of meals. The droid's original task, no doubt, before finding the youth in trash chute.

"Your master is Senator Amurth, right?" Starkiller posed as he covered his head with the hood of his cloak again.

"Yes. I am MK-Three-P-O of Human-cyborg relations. Shall I tell the Senator he as a guest?"

"No. Stay here and don't make a sound..."

"It is only proper that I inform the master, since he might lose face if you were to rush in on him."

"That's the idea. Stay here and be **quite**."

"As I said, it was only proper-"

"This is ridiculous." With a quick Force Grip and Pull, the boy brought the droid to him and caught it at it's neck joint with his hands. The robot squealed in it's subdued feminine, automated voice and flailed it's arms until the youth's finger hit it's power switch. Now a becoming rigid and heavy, Starkiller slowly carried the droid down to the white tiled floor without making a sound. The boy didn't know if he should snicker or groan at what just happened, though groan to be on safe side. Pulling is wrist up, he commed his own droid, "PROXY, shut down all the servant droids still operating. I just met a persistent protocol droid and down want to do it again."

"I shall see what I can do, Master." PROXY replied sounded doubtful, but the young warrior was total confident in his slicing abilities.

Moving to an open doorway, the boy peeked out into a hall with dull shaded walls and dark blue carpeting. The Force told him that it was clear and he remembered PROXY saying that the Senator was alone. Reaching out with his feelings, Starkiller let the Force guide him to his kill. Walk down the hall, he stopped at the second door on the left. The youth probed the room on the other side with is mind. There was only one being in the room, Senator Amurth without a doubt. From what the boy could sense, he seemed calm and yet, uneased. Perhaps he was reading a nasty letter, it wouldn't matter soon.

As the door opened with a slight hiss, Starkiller glided in and melted into the shadows along the walls. The room was dark, it's only source of light was the fleeting glow of the setting sun through a large permaglass double-doors, leading out to a balcony overlooking Coruscant's skyline. Still, though, the boy see the collection of primitive tribal shields, masks, and war spears lining the walls of the chamber. The masks and shields were decorated with colored lines of dark reds and blues that criss-crossed their surfaces. Sitting on the floor just underneath lied tall pottery with simpler line designs. Close to the rear of the room, an elegantly made arm-chair sat facing the balcony. The Force flowed through the boy, telling him that his target, Senator Amurth was in the chair. He could feel that the senator was still very calm with slight despair...and something else...determination... ...

"Finally. I was beginning to think that you weren't coming." A deep voice proclaimed from the chair. Starkiller's minded whirl with shock and confusing, he hadn't done a thing to alert his presence in the room.

_A Force-sensitive? No, I would have sensed it by now._

"It's odd, isn't it." The voice, which the boy surmised must be the senator, continued, "When I first came into politics, I never thought I would have to prepare for assassins and spies invading my home. How much things have changed with the come of the Empire."

"The Empire is of little concern to you now, Amurth..." The young warrior stepped out of the shadows, abandoning stealth as the senator was bluntly aware of him now, "All you have to worry about now is the Here-After... ..."

The boy took his saber into a reverse hand-grip and ignited the crimson blade behind his back. The red light cast way more of darkness with sinister shades, illuminating his figures under his hood. Senator Amurth, standing from his chair, turned to face his assassin with a hard look in his eyes. The man definitely did not look like a senator, standing over 2 meters tall with a shaved head and an aged, tattooed face. He was supposedly human, but to Starkiller he seemed something more primal. The tribal looking robe Amurth was wearing only came down to his shins, revealing his bare legs and feet, completed the senator's primordial appearance.

"I am not afraid of death" Amurth related, "but I come to the belief that one who doesn't fight to stay alive has never truly lived. So eye shall resist you with everything that I am! To defeat you, if I can!!"

"You will try... ..."

From the sleeve the senator's robe, a hand appeared with a small device in it. The boy pulled himself into a defensive stance, readying himself for whatever Amurth would throw at him. Suddenly, a sound alerted the youth to his right. One of the taller vases was beginning to shake and tremble, nearly jumping on it's own off the floor. Another to the other side of him and Starkiller saw second vase begin to tremble as well. Their surfaces cracked and shatter apart, exposing a set of four heavy mechanical legs at each the two vases. More of the pottery crumbled away and revealed a blaster turret, with dozens of barrels on either vase. The boy changed his stance into more advance Shien form to prepare for the turrets laser fire.

"Master!" PROXY called over the comlink, "I've just detected two heavily armed security droids activate!!"

"A little late PROXY..." The youth grunted through is teeth.

"Master! Their Hex Five-Q Super Assault Droids!! Their rate of fire is too much for your abilities to deflect."

"WHAT!!!"

The Force tugged on the boy, prompting Starkiller to leap up into the air as a wave of blue blaster bolts washed over where he had stood. The wall was eviscerated within a second by the bolt torrent, to point where it didn't exist any more and the floor was stripped to to the service pipes and wires were visible, half a meter under durasteel. As the young warrior landed, one of the assault droids targeted him, it's barrels starting to whirl as started to fire. The boy raced to his left, push the Force in his legs as started running up and across the wall. The droid follow his movements with it's blaster fire, tearing away the wall behind the blur of Starkiller, until the blur passed by the droid. It's guns suddenly halted and after a moment dropped to it's side in a heap of sparking metal.

The second droid took several heavy steps to the middle of the room and started firing it's guns at the boy. With mighty Force assist leap, the youth flow up, twisting as he soared, and hit the ceiling with his feet to send himself sailing to the last droid. Before he reached the assault mech, Starkiller throw his saber at the droid. The crimson blade sank in, stopping at the joint that let the guns pivoted and turn. The boy landed on his hands atop the killing machine and sprung off it's "head" to a flipped harmlessly on the other side of it. The droid kept it's guns blazing, though, washing the remnants of the walls away as it slowly turned around to where the young warrior was. Quickly taking the assault droid up in a Force Grip, Starkiller sent the mech zooming at the senator. Amurth was swift, however, and was able to skid away from the flying droid as it slammed through the permaglass doors and into the balcony behind him.

The boy moved to Amurth, called to his saber back to his hand where he whirled it around once or twice before grip in a reverse hold. The senator was still calm, despite having a ton of droid throw at him, with the cool character of a calculating warrior as the carefully retreated back. As his bare foot touched some of the former walls surviving decorations, Amurth rolled backwards and grabed a spear and shield from the ground before landing back on his feet. Ripping is rob off and taking what seemed like a fighting stance, the senator sent out a battle cry. Amurth's body was perfectly cut, without an once of fat, and he seemed to still be in his prime despite his ago. Clad in nothing but a dark leather loincloth, Amurth truly looked like a prehistoric hunter from the another time.

"You can't be serious..." The boy smirked and raised his lightsaber in defensive stance. He would see just how this modern day tribal warrior fought.

The senator stomp his feet against the floor and made a whooping cry, then charged the youth. Amurth sent a thrust with spear, but the boy simple sliced the head off with a flick of his crimson blade. The senator continued to thrust, though, regardless and Starkiller had to side-step to avoid the smoldering clunk of wood. Before the boy could counter back, Amurth slammed his shield into the youth's face, causing him to stumble back with grunt. The senator yelled and followed his shield pound with crack to Starkiller's head with his spear. The boy was knocked to the floor, still in fluster from the blows, and barely rolled out of the away of Amurth's stomping foot. Whirling up back to his feet, the young warrior gasped as he saw a tipped spear fly at him and flicked his lightsaber, vaporizing half the weapon and knocking it away. He caught a glimpse of Senator Amurth before throw another spear the boy. Starkiller scowled and sent the primitive weapon aside with a Force Push. With a swiping motion of his arm and several pieces of the previously sliced assault droid flow across the room and soar into the senator. Amurth was grunted, taking a few steps back as the boy sent another Force Push and tossed him out onto the balcony.

Senator Amurth struggle to his feet, leaning heavily against the railing of the balcony. Each of his breaths were labored as blood trickled down from his mouth. He most likely had serious internal bleed and a few fractured bones. The senator watched Starkiller in failing light of dust as he exit onto the balcony to join him, stepping over the other defeated droid. The boy stood, rising his red lightsaber above his with both is hands, ready to delivery the ending blow to Senator Amurth. He stopped, halting himself. The youth sensed something...an off feeling...another presences!

"Master, the security sensors are detecting another person entering the apartment!" PROXY proclaimed over his wrist bound comlink, "It's the Togruta princess, Master!"

"Inari... NO!" Starkiller looked down on Amurth, for the first time seen and sensing a strong emotion protect from him.

"Call to her" The boy commanded, lowering his saber.

"Never..." The senator clenched his chest and coughed out a small pool of blood, but still manged to pull himself up, "You will just kill her along with me. Why should I help you?"

"A quick death is better than me _hunting_ her down..." Amurth fell silent for a moment, bowing his head as he retreated into thought. Glancing back to Starkiller, he made a decision... ...

"I will call to her if you let me say what I will to her and _you_."

"I'm not much for sentiment, old man-"

"Then maybe for information. Like about the organization I am part of..." The boy blinked, forcing his features to remain neutral, but the look of surprise and confuse still popped up, "Oh yes...I thought your master would believe me to be the leader. Whoever he is, he doesn't seem to have as good as spies as he thought."

"Tell me, now!"

"Spare Inari and I will tell you what you want." The young warrior sent a low growl through his teeth as he gripped his saber's handle in his grasp. The crimson blade disappeared and he nodded with a displeased grunt.

* * *

Inari, for the life of her, couldn't think of a way out of a confrontation with her uncle. That annoyed her, the girl could normally find an exist for Uncle Amurth's rage - like making an debate/rant about new imperial alien laws. Her uncle would then go off into his own little world and session of the senate. A few hours later, he would have forgot whatever Inari had done - however, she had zilch. Everyone had their off days, she supposed as she moved to her apartment door and punched in the security code into the panel. As the door slid open, the Togruta girl was faced with a weird smell...it was series of smells really. Inari ignored them. There was also an odd noises coming from across the common room of the apartment, from corridor that lead to Uncle Amurth's study. She ignored those as well, walked to the kitchen. Her uncle would normally performed some bizarre Togruta ritual that was too odd for her to want to take part in. Inari walked in on a few see **never** what's to remember seeing ever again. She only hoped that whatever outlandish thing Uncle Amurth was up too preoccupy him till morning and then she wouldn't have to see him.

"Three-P-O!" Inari called as she stepped into the kitchen, "MK-Three-P-O!! Where is that droid?"

"Inari! Come here, NOW!" The Togruta flinched. So much for forget about her.

The girl walked over the doorway that joined the kitchen to the hall, but as she moved around the table she noticed a figure laying across the floor. Three-P-O!! Droid was stretched across the white tile floor, it's face down. Inari was about to go to the protocol droid, until she happen to glance back into the hallway. Or at least what was left of it. The Togruta girl gasped as she gaped at the torn out walls and smoldering burn marks. Even the floor was in tatters. Inari rush down hall her uncle's study, her heart beating against her chest as she looked through the holes in the walls. The corridor was unrecognizable.

"Uncle!!" Inari cried as she ran through door of the study. The room was in shambles, chewed up by some unknown force, "Uncle Amurth!!!"

"Inari...I'm here." Across the ruined study, her uncle stood out on the balcony along with a black cloaked person. Inari dashed out to Uncle Amurth, wrapping her arms around him.

"Uncle! Uncle, what happened?!" The girl looked up into her uncle's face, tears welling up in her eyes. Her uncle was bleeding from the mouth, Uncle Amurth was bleed!! Inari glanced back to the cloaked figure. Had he something to do with this?

"Inari..." Her uncle's ragged voice brought the Togruta back to him, "Inari. My beautiful Togruta girl. I'm sorry." Uncle Amurth was beginning to scary her. What was wrong? She wanted to know, "There will be times when you want to asked why I had done things I've done. Don't be afraid to ask. All I can tell you now is that did it so that you and everyone could life better, in a world without barriers."

"Uncle" Inari pressed her face into the mans bare chest. Uncle Amurth stroked his hand down the down the back of her head, from her montrals to her neck. Inari looked up into her uncle's heavily tattooed face as he smiled down at her. His wrinkles turn up under the facial markings to smile too.

"That's good enough. Tell me the names." The Togruta glared back at the cloaked person. With a second look, Inari could see that the one in the cloak was extremely young. Maybe not as young as her, but he was definitely in his mid-teens. Yes, _he_, there was human boy under that cloak, though most of his features were hidden.

"To tell you the truth, I am merely a pawn." Uncle Amurth told the boy, "I am so low in the organization that name I'm about to give you maybe another pawn like me. Still the same, Ryoo of Rori was the one giving me my orders. Her connections to the organization, what the organization's main plans are, I do not know..."

"Feh..." The cloaked boy grunted in disapproval. Inari could see him gritting his teeth from what little the hood of his cloak revealed. He was upset, but the girl wasn't sure how upset he should be seen that he might have being the one to do this to her uncle, the Togruta wasn't sure though.

"Inari..." The girl turned back to her uncle, "You must go now. More shall come soon."

"More?"

"What are you talking about, old man..." The boy demanded.

"This Empire of ours is more divided then you know, young one." Uncle Amurth pushed the Togruta girl way from him and kept her at arms length, "Inari, go back to Shili while there's still time."

"Uncle...I don't want to leave you like this!"

"*Sigh* go and-"

Her uncle stopped and twisted to looked over the railing as Inari heard faint noise in the distance. _Whoop-whoop-whoop_. Then it suddenly appeared. Rising up above the balcony, a military gunship - one that had been used since the Clone Wars - loomed down at them as a blind spotlight cast down on them. The three raised their arms to block the light. Inari expected to her a loudspeaker announce that they were under imperial arrest or something along those lines, screaming above the sound of repulsor engines. Unfortunately, the only sound that came was the mechanical whining of the gunship's laser cannons aiming at the trio. Uncle Amurth grabbed the Togruta girl's arm and thrust her at the cloaked boy. Seemingly in surprise, the boy caught her.

"Go! Take her!!" Her uncle bellowed and turned to the hovering gunship, climbing up on the railing with a few pain grunts, "Is it me that you want?! Don't you know...I'M A TOGRUTA WARRIOR!!!!"

"UNCLE!!!!!" Flashes of ember tore through the man's body as Inari felt herself being carried aloft.

She instinctively hugged the boy, but kept watching Uncle Amurth as his body fell back onto the balcony, a charred ruin. As Inari felt herself falling, she want scream. Scream because of her uncle, scream because she was falling, scream because her life was totally up ended, scream because she didn't understand a lick of what was happening. But she couldn't scream. So so sobbed and hung on to the cloaked boy, the only solid thing in her life at the moment. Sinking her noise into his should, Inari did find some scrap of solace in the boy's body warmth.

* * *

Author's Note: Feedback, feedback, feedback! Review!!!

My God! A forum? On the Internet?? For opinions?!!!


	2. Chapter 2

Note: Read & Review!

Disclaimer: All rights for Star Wars elements go to George Lucas and his Lucasarts. OK!!!

* * *

Starkiller leapt from the balcony as a LAAT blasted it's cannons. He saw the senator get eviscerated by the green beams, finishing the task the boy came to do. With Amurth dead and with the information he was given, the young warrior resolved himself to report back to Lord Vader. He looked down and caught site of a lower balcony as he plummeted towards it. Slowing his descent with the Force, Starkiller landed harmlessly on the balcony. The Togruta girl was still hanging onto him, to the boy's announce.

"Hey. HEY!" The youth yelled at the girl, "Let go!!"

"...*sob* ..." The girl refused to release him as she continued to make odd noises into his shoulder.

"Feh...Let go, now, or I'll kill you!"

"Go ahead!" The young warrior groaned at her answer. It was threat, not a promise. Starkiller hadn't the time to kill the girl as the sound of the gunship's engines got nearer and nearer.

"Get on my back!" The Togruta hesitated for a moment, before complying to the command.

She reached her body around to his back, never really letting go of him - she seemed to refuse to do anything that made her let go of the boy - and young warrior wrapped his arms under her thighs. The Force tug on Starkiller and he speedily jumped from the balcony as a set of missiles erupted it in fire. Down the building's exterior they went, leapt to outcrops and open balconies, dodging blaster cannon bolts and missiles, the boy carrying a terrified girl on his back. It was one of _those_ days, huh? The youth could see the building where PROXY was waiting at and the covered walkway the conjoined it with 500 Republica. The Force tugged on him to jump left, and in doing so he missed being hit by a laser shot. When Starkiller got to the walkway, he would have to run the whole way to the adjacent building, there was no way for him to enter the walkway from outside. With the Togruta girl, he was close to double his weight and he hoped that didn't meaning his was now twice as slow.

The landing on a outcrop protecting a meter from the building, the boy sited a the jet-trail of missile come his way. The walkway was right there, a stone-throw away, but if Starkiller jumped now the pilot on in the LAAT would veer the missile straight down on him. The rocket came closer and closer. The outcrop didn't have anything to take cover behind, the youth and the girl barely fitted on it! Focusing the Force into his legs, Starkiller leapt straight for the missile. For a moment, he was sure the Togruta whimpered. The missile and boy scowled at each other as the distance between them became shorter and shorter. The young warrior struck his foot out and stomped down on the body of the rocket, springboarding up and flipping forward, away from the missile. A second later, the missile hit the building in loud explosion and the young warrior could feel the heat washing over him.

Landing on the walkway, the boy looked down through the transparisteel at the people moving around inside. Most had stopped and looked up at him and the girl on his back. To Starkiller's surprise, most where red armored Coruscant Guard. How did they get here so fast? The youth pushed the thought to the back of his head and started charging down the length of the walkway. It was as long as a city block and he still had a gunship on his heels. It was definitely one of those days.

* * *

Tiny headtails flying in the wind, Inari watched dozens of green cannon bolts pop around the cloaked boy and her from the back of his hood. The lasers were knocking and melting off chunks off the surface to the transparisteel walkway, but at the speed they were travel the gunship had no chance of hitting them. Inaria couldn't get her made around it. They were traveling as fast as airspeeder, zooming down the length of the walkway to the other building. It was the same with how they climbed down from the heights of the apartment. They didn't climb, that is, the boy _flow_ down, leaping from impossible distances with only the slightest of effort. The girl felt herself slipping from the his back and the Togruta clenched her eyes and tighten her arms around the boy's neck. The boy made a few garbled gasps until Inari release that she was cutting off his windpipe and relaxed her grip. She hoped she wasn't hampering his efforts too much. With an angry cannoned gunship pounding away behind them, she was hopping for both their sakes.

To Inari's surprise, the end of the walkway came into view. It had seemed so far away when they first started running down the length, but here was face of the adjacent building leering at them closer an closer. The girl blinked as a small door above the walkway swung open. It appeared to be a service entrance and Inari didn't think that it would be automated. But it _had_ open on it's own....? The Togruta girl's mind faded off the thought as another blaster cannon bolt flew past her head. Escaping death was the more pressing issue and if the service door wanted to magically open to bid them in, all the better. The cloaked boy dashed to the door and lept through it's opening. As short as Inari's montrals were, one still got scraped as they passed the frame of the door. The girl gritted her teeth was a spike of pain down from her montral to her eyes, but Inari held herself from calling out. The boy didn't stop.

The service door lead to to a small tunnel - which they blurred past with the cloaked boy's speed - that ended with another door. The boy kicked it open and jumped onto a tight catwalk. From what Inari could see, the two landed in the highest reaches of the building's greeting hall. Three permaglass entrances lined the polished marble floors, along with four massive staircases that lead up a level to the conjoining walkways. A huge floating fountain dazzled in the center of hall, hovering thirty meters of the ground. And that for mentioned polished marble floor was covered in crimson Coruscant Gurads. There most have been at least a _hundred_ of them! Inari never had being that building before, but she couldn't imagine that Guards frequented the hall like this.

"Master-"

"Not now, PROXY!" The boy yelled into his wrist comlink.

"Hey, look!" Someone cried at the end of the catwalk. The pair twisted and saw a two red Guards trod down the long the metal grate towards the boy and her. The leading one stopped, gesturing the second to hault as he turn his head to the side, as though the Guard was listening to someone very carefully.

"But Master!" The voice on the other side of the wrist com popped in again, sounding very persistent, "An All Points Bulletin has just came over the Coruscant Guard channels with the Togruta Princess and _your_ description. It's says to shot on site!!"

"Blast them!!" The lead Guard screamed as he and his comrade raised their rifles.

The cloaked boy grunted and leapt from the catwalk, to Inari's horror. The Togruta's stomach jumped up to her throat and choked her for moment as the two plummeted to the fountain. They hit the liquid with huge splash, but the water's depth was shallow and the boy last his grip on Inari as he staggered to a halt. The girl flew off his back, hitting the fountain's bottom with her shoulder and rolled across the shallow water. Inari pulled herself up, leaning heavily against a spire at the center of the floating fountain, spraying down water into the shallow depths and drenching the what little of the Togruta girl that wasn't already soaked. She stared back at the cloaked boy, his hood now drawn back and for the first time Inari gazed upon his face. He was human, with shortly buzz-cut hair, dark brown in color. His skin was ghastly pale, too white even for humans, though still wasn't the chalk white skin of some Twi'lek's Inari knew. The boy's face was structured with attractive angles and a handsome cleft chin, but the fiery glance he gave the Togruta before looking back up filled the girl with dread. Suddenly, a hail of red lasers rained around the boy.

"There in the fountain!" Inari twisted up and saw the two Guards from the catwalk firing down on them, "Targets in the hover-fountain! Blast them!!"

The fountain shuttered as the sound of blaster fire erupted from underneath them. One or two shots broke straight through the fountain's bottom, jump up from the water like trout in a stream and zoom up past them. The two crimson troopers from above kept blasting down on the boy and Inari. The boy scowled up at them, taking a short cylinder into his grip. The Togruta girl gasped as a meter long column of blazing blood red light jumped up from the cylinder with a hum and the boy started swatting coming bolts away from his form.

_A __**lightsaber**__..._ Inari thought to herself as the boy veered more shots away with his whirling blade. Her father and uncle told the girl about lightsabers and the people who wielding them. At school, the Togruta was taught that lightsabers were the weapons of the Empire's enemies - though, of course, the dark lord Vader used such a weapon to kill these enemies - and that even owning one was capital offense. But that didn't stop the feeling of adventurous romance to seeing that the boy was: _A Jedi! He's a Jedi!! I almost can't believe it. But that's a lightsaber and he's waving it around like he really knows how to use it! He's a Jedi... ..._

"Feh...This is getting annoy!" The boy declared, raising his wrist comlink to his mouth as the skillfully continued batting blaster fire away, one handed now, "PROXY. What's your location."

"I'm on the landing platform across from the southern entrance, Master" This PROXY related through the com, "but there's several barricades between me and the entrance. It will not be easy to get past them, Master."

"I'll come to you, then..."

The boy stared in Inari's directing, scowling as he continued to swat away blaster bolt with little effort, without so much as looking as that zoomed at him before batting them with a flick of his saber. The girl blinked as he sloshing across the shallow waters over to her. What was he doing? Did he think that handing Inari over to the Coruscant Guard would get him off? Perhaps at least buy him some time? The Empire described the Jedi as betrayers and rats, that showed no concern for others. Her father, though, said they defended the peace of the galaxy and helped many people and planets with their troubles. The Togruta girl didn't know which was true, but the look in the boy's eye didn't seem benevolent. Inari swallowed a fear filled gulp, but determined to stand her ground. She wouldn't go quickly, just as Uncle Amurth hadn't gone quickly, just like any Togruta would.

The boy stepped closer, his whirling blade casting a crimson glows and shadows across his features. Nothing seem to impede him, not the resistance of the water or the rain of blaster shots, as he walked up to Inari. An new thought flew through the Togruta girl's mind, that he had no designs of giving Inari to the Guard. He merely might want to stop the girl from slowing him down again...by killing her before she could. Inari's eyes widen with the realization and she lost a little of her nerve. The boy stopped in front of her and scowled down at her, seemingly throwing over the girl. Inari could feel a yelp push up her throat, though she swallowed it and tensed her stance, challenged the boy to do his worst. He snarled in with an angry growl and with a swipe of his arm, knocked the girl down and moved to the central spire of the fountain. The Togruta landed on the rear with slash, blinking up at the boy as he rose his lightsaber up and sliced an arch across the spire. The blade nearly cut the spire in two as the it's spray halted and the sound of failing repulsor engines called up from the base of the fountain. Inari felt herself falling...the fountain was falling! Gritting her teeth in preparation for the crash, Inari reached up and pulled herself around her savior's - or murderer's - waist.

Inari suddenly felt the fountain stop, but wasn't the hard shattering as she had expected. It just..._stopped_. Looking up, she noticed that the blaster fire had secede and the boy's lightsaber was no longer protecting it's glowing red blade as he held his hands aloft. The boy's face seemed to be in strain, as though he was lift the fountain himself. Inari gasped. He _was_ lifting the fountain. She remembered her father saying something about Jedi and controlling things around them with their minds. That's what most be happening here on a massive scale, _literally_. A sense of wonder filled Inari again. Weather the boy was going to kill her or rescue her, being in the presence of Jedi was awe inspiring. The Guards started to fire upon them again, getting past their astonishment at the boy's feat.

"After we start moving, will you let go of me?" The boy inquired, glancing down at the Togruta girl, "We can't stop to think, then."

"... ..." At that moment, Inari recognized that she should had died the second after her uncle, but the boy saved her. He had kept saving her, carrying her to this moment, figuratively and in reality. And now he's asking her to trust him, "Of course... "

He nodded down at her and closed his eyes to focus, a scowl across his features. With a sharp grunt, the fountain suddenly jerked forward and soared through the permaglass south entrance. As Inari had been expecting before, the fountain hit the ground with a tremendous thud and slide across the durasteel walkway with sharps jumping from the friction. Had their been barricades as PROXY had side, they were probably pulverized now. The Togruta wasn't sure, but she believed that she saw a few armored bodies flip over head. As the fountain finally lost it's momentum, Inari stood up and released the boy from her grasp as he jumped from the fountain to the walkway. The girl watch him for a moment, wondering if he would rescue her for another time. He looked back... ...

"Come on! Now!!" The boy commanded in a harsh tone.

His call pick Inari up, too excited to let his fierce eyes unease her. She almost smiled, but a few blaster bolts zooming past her head brought her back to the moment. Hopping out of the fountain, the two dashed down the remainer of the walkway to the landing platforms. There was several swoops and airspeeders and Inari slowed down to look at them all. She hadn't a clue as to which held a this PROXY from the boy's comlink. The boy, though, didn't stop. He glance over shoulder and saw her lagging behind and reached back, grabbing her hand as he run to the the edge of the platform. The Togruta girl noted an air taxi hovering next to the platform, with a good sized Wookiee at it's helm. The fury alien had a large white spot on the middle of it's chest, which Inari had never seen on the species before. Hopping onto the taxi and pulling the girl along, the boy patted the Wookiee on the shoulder.

"Let's go!"

"Yes, Master." _Did that Wookiee just talk?_

As the girl wondered at the audibility of the fury driver, the speeder lurched forward and Inari fell back onto the seat. The boy breathed a sigh of relief and sunk down into the cushion, resting his head down propped arm. It was them normal state Inari saw the boy in since the first met. Though...in actuality, they _hadn't_ properly met and the Togruta girl didn't want to continue the mystery between them. But Inari didn't have the energy for a cheer smile and tactful posing of his past. She hoped that small smile she could manage and total bluntness didn't offend him too much.

"Thank you." It's good start for person who saves your life. Inari it said with all her sincerity, turn her lips up with focus - despite the hole she felt in the from of her uncle - and pushed it his direction. The boy glanced her way, eyebrow cocked in question as to what she was pertaining to, "For saving me. I'd still be up in my apartment, probably die, if you didn't help me."

"You wouldn't let go..." The Togruta blinked and felt her cheeks warm up in a blush. It had been rather childish, even considering the circumstances.

_Wait. Would he had just left me there if I hadn't hang on to him?_ Inari frowned, but kept an comments on such to herself.

"So... ..." The girl searched for another subject to defer to. There was really one other, "Your a Jedi, huh?"

"I am not a Jedi..."

"Come on!" She snickered, "The Coruscant Guard in his district saw your lightsaber. You don't have to worry, anyway, I'll keep your secret for you. I'm Inari Dakini, by the-" The boy stood up and leaned over the Togruta girl, coming down almost nose to nose with her.

"I am _not_ a **Jedi**... ..." Inari slink back as far as she could into the seat. The boy followed her with scowl, his burning eyes staring through her to the core.

"... sorry ..."

"Feh... " He fell back to his side of the taxi, touching the Wookiee driver's arm, "PROXY, circle around twice before returning home, and change into something less noticeable."

"Yes, Master." If Inari doubted that she heard the Wookiee talk before, she didn't now. But that was least of the phenomenal driver's feats, as it was enveloped in a strange light and _reformed_ into a hacked down droid with wires showing through. The girl had only a second to gawk at the droid, as the light reappeared and changed it into a Gran with it's three eyes blinking at the skylane they were nearing, "Shall I stop at some secluded spot to drop off the Togruta Princess' dead body?"

_What?_

"Just go home, PROXY..."

The air taxi pitched up and entered the never ending speeder traffic that circled Coruscant. A cold chill washed over Inari as the wind blew wildly through the opening airspeeder. She was still very much wet from the floating fountain and her Twi'lek fashion wasn't meant for keeping warm. Wrapping her arms around herself, the Togruta shivered in silenced and wondered what else the universe had to in store for her.

* * *

In the outer reaches of the galaxy proper, just past the Moddell and Spar Sectors, a lone Star Destroyer loomed over a little known and little visited planet. Deep inside the colossal, the Dark Lord of the Sith, Darth Vader, rested in his meditation chamber. The infamous black mask and helmet where missing from the Dark Lord's form, held aloft by two thin robot arms so that Vader had some relief to fall asleep with. It didn't work, though. He had not slept since in any true fashion since he took his sinister Sith mantle. Not since Anakin Skywalker died. Not since Mace Windu died. Not since the Temple fell, it's Padawan, Knights, and Masters having died. Not since Padme... ...

Vader could see them whenever he closed his eyes, leering back at him and waiting. Waiting... ...

Breathing in a deep breath of processed air, welling his emotions into raw energy. Vader could feel the Dark Side of this whole star system touch him as he did it. He had never been to a place this steeped into the Dark Side, not even Korriban matched it's level. And with that fact every present around him, it seem to make sense in the twist Jedi logical for Master and Padawan to hide. He could not sense them over the Dark Side that flooded his mind, despite how power his own master, Emperor Palpatine, had said they were. A small podium protect up from the floor of the meditation chamber, breaking Vader's thoughts as the image of his kneeling dark pupil appeared.

"My master..." The boy related in all imbibing reverence, "Senator Amurth is dead."

"And you dare thing this worth disturbing me about?" The Dark Lord was happy and felt some pride in the youth's accomplishment, but would think of letting that show to his young pupil. Soon he will fulfill all the plans made out for him and Vader wish he didn't know a thing, so he kept his scowl, "If your mission is finished, go and train. Do not think your pitiable feats impress me, boy. Do not call me again!"

"Master..._I_ did not kill him... ..."

"What?!!!"

"A military gunship averaged and murdered the senator, point-blank, and then went after me. The senator also revealed before dying that he was not head of the organization he was a part of."

"Explain yourself!!"

"Amurth said that he received his orders from another... a 'Ryoo of Rori'. He knew nothing else." Vader gripped his fingers around the arms of his chair, creaking their metal under the power of his prosthetics and the Force.

"Kill this Ryoo of Rori and who ever else! Don't let a single rebel survive!!!"

"Yes, my master... ..." The boy's face strained thoughtfully as his holo image lingered on, as though to add to his report. The Dark Lord was perplexed. If he had eyebrows, he'd be rising one by now, "Master...I have the senator's Togruta charge with me..."

"His _what_?"

"A Togruta Princess from Shili. Senator Amurth was her guardian on Imperial Center as she came for schooling here. I do not know what to do with her... "

"Has she seen your face?" The young warrior nodded, "All those who have gazed upon your face must die. We can not afford her reviling you to the Emperor just yet. Killer her."

"Yes...my master..."

* * *

"Isn't there any more blankets or clothes?"

"No, this is all my master has."

Even with the droid saying that, Inari could help by get frustrated. She was sitting atop a mass of dirty rags and old bed sheets. The boy's _bed_, in what she guess was his bedroom and living area. The old Foundry that they had came to was humongous, but derelict. Every chamber they had passed to get to his room was stripped, with cables hanging free from the ceilings and chunks of the floor pulled up. The Togruta girl was sure she saw a few metalmites creeping along the walls, too, which made her feel _oh_ so better. Inari hated bugs. The boy's room, though, was thankfully insect free, if a little spartan. And by spartan, one should see 3 meter by 6 meter room with the rags bed atop a durasteel floor and a basin for cleaning. The appearance changing droid, PROXY the boy had called him, was actually very cheery. Especial when talking about killing her. Even know he happily gathered what few clothes that where in the room and present them to Inari to choose to change into. Her's were still very wet from fountain and she let out a sneeze as she studied the ripped garments with a frown.

"Maybe I should just tough it out in what I have out...*Ahh-Choo*..." Inari started to shiver again.

"I must note that the Togruta species is total reliant on their limited body fat and clothing to keep themselves warm." The gleeful related, as though a teacher to a young student, "Plus the leading cause of ammonia is the continued wearing of wet clothing. I would not want you to caught ammonia and die before my master kills you!"

He seem so merry about the whole thing.

"Ok, ok..." The girl fumbled between articles of clothing, or precisely, the remnants of clothing. Most of it seem like it was falling apart in her hands. Finally she found a mostly intact tunic that was over sized enough to cover what needed to be covered, "I guess this will do... Ummmm... ...I know your a droid and all, but could you... ..."

"Oh! Of course! Biologics' modesty." PROXY twisted his back to Inari and focused on the rear of the room. The girl quickly started to unfasten the buttons on the back of her tank top, "I've never truly understood the principal of the nude taboo. Most biologic species seem to evolve on their own. Truly impractical if temperature levels are warm enough. It took my master sometime to undress in front of me, though."

Inari let her soaking wet top roll off her arms and hit the durasteel floor plates, then started to work on the fastening to the front of the tunic. She wearing Twi'lek style clothing when mess started happening, and such dress was traditionally worn with out a bra or upper underwear. The girl wasn't a exhibitionist or something, she just really like Twi'lek culture. Is it any wonder why they're enslaved mainly for the sex market? As Inari unlatched the last fastening, she came to realize what was happening. This was the first time she was in a boy's room. The first time she was getting _undressed_ in a boy's room. Now that was stretching the suggestion too much. First of all, this wasn't a the place or time to do...that sort of thing... and second she wasn't looking for it!!! Even if she was, she was never be bold enough with such things as boys she liked. Lastly, consider the boy. Sure, he was pretty and had the air of mystery about him...but there was darkness to him that could never be romanticized. Something about him demanded fear from everyone, only the droid was immune against it. It was like-

"It's time..." Inari gasped and turned around, bring the tunic to her chest in a tight hug. The boy had returned without a sound, scaring the wits out of the girl. She almost slugged him, but stopped herself consider who _he_ was.

"Could you please just wait for a couple more seconds!" The Togruta girl huffed out, blushing as she clenched her dignity even closure to her. She heard PROXY's robotic footsteps walk up behind her, stopping maybe an arms length away, "Really, whatever it is. Is going to have to wait."

"It isn't my decision...My master demands it... ..."

Before Inari could make another protest, the boy ignited his crimson lightsaber. Her eyes widened. He pointed the humming blaze beneath the girl's chin as ruby cast over her skin. Inari couldn't breath, couldn't think. All she could do was watch the red glowing blade hover a few hairs from her heart.

* * *

Author's Note: Considering that I these two chapters (formally ONE chapter) in a week, you might get a health rate of updates. But also considering that I want to start working on my other star wars fanfic and I have night classes, I wouldn't be to hopeful. This will be continued, though.

Review!!


	3. Chapter 3

Note: A little Kotor explanation for those who haven't played or heard of it...all seven of you... Read & Review!

Disclaimer: I happen to look into the mirror today and was surprised to see that I'm not George Lucas! So I guess I don't own the rights to Star Wars, George does, as well as Lucasarts, Lucasfilm, etc...

Cool?

* * *

Millennia before the rise of the Galactic Empire, long before the Old Republic, another imperial nation existed that ruled over the galaxy. The Infinite Empire, commanded by the advance Rakata species, their technology and brutality was made even more potent by the power of the Dark Side. The birth of their empire shaped the cultures and civilizations of the known universe, enslaving countless races and devastating whole planets. However, with all things that have been born they eventually die and after thousands of years of rule, the Rakata's empire fell. As the former galactic tyrants retreated back to their homeworld and capital, Lehon, and their Infinite Empire faded into history. Now the their planet lays abandon, the Rakata long since dead, and their tropic world left to the backwaters of the galaxy, never to a play part in history ever again... ...

* * *

On a the long stretch of beach, one of Lehon's spar inhabits was enjoying the hot summer breeze as she squished grains of white sand between her toes. Drakka Judarrl had always warmth of their adopted home, even if her master scorned it. For Jedi Force monk, he seem to have a lot of complaints. Drakka loved the heat, though, along with the blues of the sky and the clear waters of the ocean. It was a beautiful planet to see...but every time the Padawan looked out onto the horizon or gazed long enough onto tranquil appearing tropical planet life...there was something much deeper than beauty. No single term described it, other than one. Not fear or anger or sorrow or dread, only one concept matched the feeling Drakka felt:

It was the **Dark Side**... ...

Master Fel'Kona said that the whole planet was nexus of the blacker half of the Force, a produce of the lost Rakata's Force-powered war machines. That was what attached Drakka and her master to Lehon as hiding place from the Empire, the massive presence of the Dark Side shielded them from detection from Palpatine and his minions. That didn't help the Zarbrak girl during the nights. Drakka would normally wake up in the middle night with start, feeling the darkness staring back her straight into her inner most mind. Master Fel'Kona reminded her to constantly be aware of her emotions, never to let them tarry in her thoughts for look, and had her on a strict mediation schedule, all to keep the Dark Side's influence at bay. So, the Zarbrak and her master had locked darkness of Lehon from them and the rest of the galaxy, like a wild beast in a cage. But Drakka sense it pacing and staring out between the bars. Waiting.

"*Siiigghh*...blasted weather..." Drakka twisted around and saw Master Fel'kona exiting their small hut. His deep wrinkled face in a frown, "If it's not hot out, it's boiling on this planet!!"

"Master, I keep telling you to adapt and get out of your heavy robes, but you never do!" The Zarbrak girl beamed at her Jedi mentor, amused by his stubbornness.

"I like to imagine that I've been raised a civilized Jedi, Drakka. So forgive me." The Jedi Master snickered through his discomfort.

The Padawan rolled her eyes back and turned back to the waves washing against the beach's edge. Drakka had assumed a modest two piece swimsuit, with a fabric loincloth tied around her waist for extra coverage. She did love the heat, but even so, still donned the outfit soon after landing on the planet. Master Fel'Kona didn't quite support the fashion change, but never objected the Zarbrak's lack of traditional robes and presentation of skin. He was focus on Drakka's mental condition, her soul, the physical was secondary. It was her duty to keep them both feed.

"I'm going for a swim, Master!" Drakka related as she started running to the water, "Don't stay out in the sun too long!"

Master Fel'Kona grunted back a yes and plopped down onto the sand, forming his thought towards a meditative state. One of the other pluses to the Zarbrak girl's apparel was that with a simple tug on her waist, her loincloth would strip off and she could jump right into the ocean. Drakka took to the water like a Mon Calamari, swimming every day - if not every hour - since her master and her arrived on Lehon 7 years ago. It was a little odd, though, since the Padawan's species' homeworld wasn't noticed for it's swimming spots. Most of the seas were acidic, nothing one enjoy waving through. Drakka wasn't raised on the homeworld, however. Instead, she was discovered by a Knight and sent to the Almas Academy, a Jedi school in the Cularin system. The moon resort, Dorumaa, was in Almas' orbit and Drakka went on many academy trips to the tropical ocean world. That was back in the better times...before the war, before the Empire, and before Vader... ...

The cool sensation of the water woke the Zarbrak girl back to the present and she dashed forward, driving into a coming wave and zoomed out into the depths. Drakka parted her lips and let her mouth fill with taste of salt. Opening her lids to gaze at down to the bottom, the young Padawan watch rainbow of colored fish glide across crystal azure reaches in schools ten times longer than her own body. Drakka raced her fingers through the blond hair around her horns. She loved the feeling of hair underwater, like it was tickling her hands. The girl smiled and, when her lungs finally screamed for a breath, swam back up to the surface.

Hitting the surface, Drakka took a gasp of sweet H2O and exhaled a laugh. Treading above the waves, the Zarbrak girl twisted back to the beach. She was pretty far out, Master Fel'Kona was just a dot on the even white shore, along with the larger tree and hut dots. Drakka reached her hand up and waved her arm at her master, receive a wave back. She was happy, with the universe and her life. Despite the pain and suffer caused by the Empire - which was wrong and had to be changed - Drakka was happy.

Treading along the surface, total at peace with existence, the young Padawan suddenly felt a sharp pain in the Force. It hurt her, right in the back of her head, like a invisible knife had stabbed Drakka from out of nowhere. The feeling was hostel and was of Dark Side, much more formed than anything the Zarbrak girl had ever felt on the planet before. Drakka saw her master stand up on the beach and stare in her direction. Glancing around, the girl heard a booming noise skyward and looked up. A shuttle. It had entered into Lehon's atmosphere and was soaring down at them. Drakka's eyes widen in shock as the whole sky behind the shuttle filled with colossal triangular hull of an Imperial-class Star Destroyer. The girl didn't have a doubt who was on the shuttle as it zoomed over head.

"Vader... ..."

* * *

There's a magical time in every young lady's life where she finds herself half naked with boy of her dreams, alone, a private little meeting in his room. Inari was in such situation... ...well, if one were to consider an abandon factory cell a traditional room. As well as overlook that the boy and her were joined by a homicidal droid that seem all too cheerful about the Togruta girl's death. And that the boy, himself, was more like something from Inari's nightmares. Then yes, it was a touching scene... ...

Inari watched the humming glow of the lightsaber with horror drawn eyes as it's crimson cast washed over her skin. The Togruta girl's orange collarbone turned a hue dark as the red blade pointed at her chest, a few centimeters from burning into her. The boy other end stared at Inari, surveying her terror struck features with a disgust filled scowl. The a part girl's mind was bellowed to her legs to run, but another part knew that the looming PROXY was right behind her ready to snatch her with his durasteel grips if Inari even begin to move.

_This is it...I'm dead..._ The Togruta despaired silently to herself as she hugged the never-don tunic to her chest. After been carried from every likely end since her apartment, Inari was to done in for by her mysterious savior. _We didn't even exchange each other's names... ..._

This stranger, the boy, didn't have a problem with that. His eyes were still filled with fire, but also with cold determination of a killer. Inari supposed that murdering her was nothing more to him then crashing a insect. She was insect to him. The girl's chest felt very hollow with that thought. She was accident to him, a mistake to rescue and with little value the boy and his droid. As he reared back his saber, Inari closed her eyes and waited for the end to finally come to worthless existence. A sudden crack of an explosion tore them open again as the floor under her lurched slightly.

"PROXY! What's happening!!" The boy demanded as another loud boom sounded and the three stumbled about the shaking room. Inari turned to the droid and watched he gaped off into empty space.

"Master! Several Imperial Army bombers are attacking the building!!" With a growl of dissatisfaction, the boy switch off the lightsaber's humming blade and made for the door. PROXY spoke up and halted his progress, "The foundry's sensors are detecting considerable ground forces outside, Master. Along with gunships and assault vehicles."

"Feh!" The boy pounded the door with his fist, then leaned against it in a defeated posture, "...how could they have found us... and all these resources... ..."

"Well, Master. You do know the Empire's stance on Force-sensitives...and in the Imperial Center no less!"

"Saving face...the bastards in Command afford to let this slide." Turning back to his droid, the boy had recollected himself and was back to his direct personality, "PROXY, get the emergency starfighter ready!"

"Master, I'm a holodroid, not a pilot." The droid retorted bluntly and the boy groan, "I don't have the proficiency or the knowledge to fly such a vessel."

"Umm...I could possible fly it." The two looked to Inari, the boy with is eyebrow cocked. The Togruta girl tightened her hold on the tunic round her chest and went on, "I can pilot anything if it's nothing bigger then a starfighter class." The boy scowled at her and folded his arms in front as he began considerin- a sudden column of flame ripped through the hallway outside the room and the whole building shuttered. There wasn't anytime to think.

"Come on!"

He barked out his command over the explosions and raced out the door, PROXY right behind him. Inari took moment to throw the tunic on and fasten as many clasps as she could before running after them. If she was going to die, the she rather die with clothes on. The hall was falling apart as the Togruta girl chased the boy and the droid down it's length. The dusty and debris dropped around her and a few of the lamb fixtures blow up into a rain of sparks and flashes. An occasion torrent of fire would splurt out a room and into the hallway. More than one came close to incinerating the Togruta, but luck was on her side and the girl made it past unharmed.

As Inari ran down the hallway, she wondered if say that see could pilot whatever craft they had was the right thing to say. What she should have said that she could pilot anything...on a flight simulator. That much was the truth. The girl had to thank the Imperial recruiters for that. The recruiters would normally visit her middle school to look for future prospects for the Army, the Navy, and the Stormtrooper Corps. The Navy would always bring their starfighter simulators - since they always could use more TIE pilots - the Togruta girl would always be picked to operate one. It wasn't as they were interested in Inari, though. An alien and a female?? Oh no. But the flight simulators had a dueling mode for each machine to be able to fight the other in a virtual space dogfight. So why pick her, one might ask, and Inari did. The recruiters bluntly replied that the Togruta girl "looked the part". As in, _she_ was the more believable space pirate while her human classmates closure to Imperial defenders. Well, Inari gladly accepted her role as raider... and whup every ace want-to-be's butt! The recruiters eventually stopped allowing her from taking one of the flight sits, since "it wasn't fare to beginner pilots".

The trio followed the hall into a large chamber that was still very much intact, even with all the explosions. Inari blinked as she saw what took up most of the room: Their _starfighter_. It was huge! And it was _floating _above the ground!! It had solar array wings, like TIE fighters, but there were three of them and they were attached directly to the fuselage, perpendicular to the hull, rather than to pylons extending from other Imperial starfighters. Each of the wings reached out into a point, like in the shape of knives, where they were tipped with a large laser cannon a piece. The the cockpit was elongated and the section behind the cockpit was roughly triangular, with the wings mounted to on the points.

"It looks like a Dagger-class..." Inari said aloud. PROXY turned to answer her... ...

"It's a Sienar series, like the Dagger...though larger of course. A V-Thirty-Eight, modified with landing repulsor protectors and a P-s-Six twin ion engine. We should be able to outrun most crafts in the galaxy."

"PROXY, get into the spare cargo hold." The boy commanded and the droid rush to a space on the craft, opened a portal into the back section, then climbed up and sealed himself in. The youth and the Togruta girl made over area under the elongated cockpit as a hatch popped open and a small elevator dropped down. The boy cocked his brow at Inari again, "Are you sure you can fly this?"

"Are you kidding? I'm a triple-ace!" The girl retorted with confident smirk, more bangs heard outside.

"Great, kid. Don't get cocky..." The two step onto the elevator and Inari glared at the boy.

"Who are _you_ calling a **kid**!!"

The small elevator lifted them into the cockpit as the hatch closed beneath. Without wasting any time, the boy stepped over to front terminal of the craft as Inari took the other one to the rear. It was only a little farther back than the other and it appeared to be the flight controls. Seating herself down, the Togruta girl quickly familiarized her hands and feet with the controls. The yaw, the thrust, the control yoke for pitch and roll, all checked. With basic flight controls down, Inari started looked of ignition switches of the engines. There they are! With a dancing finger across the controls, the girl felt the cockpit rumble as the engines fired up. She smiled, this going to be the real thing. Suddenly she frowned as she looked out of front the canopy... ...

"Um...the _doors_...!"

"PROXY, detonate the wall bolts!" The boy called into the comlink on his wrist.

"Detonate?-"

_**BOOM**_!!!!

An series of explosions sounded and the front section of the chamber tore away, revealing the night sky of Coruscant. Inari punched the throttle and the V38 soar out the chamber. The dark sky was appeared empty, a lucky break the girl thought. There were _real_ pilots flying around here - not some teenager in a flight simulator - Inari wasn't too eager to test out abilities or lack there of. She pitched the fighter up and started climbing into the sky. The boy glared over his shoulder at her... ...

"Turn back..."

"WHAT?!!"

"My console picked four TIE's coming our way." The boy pointed to a round radar screen on the terminal in front of him. A group of a red dots were zoom towards center green dot of the screen...them, "If we don't take care of them, they chase us all across Coruscant."

"Let's just get out off the planet, okay?!" Inari was starting to get a bad feeling about all this.

"They probably already have a naval blockade over head. We won't make it halfway to the hyperspace jump-point... "

The Togruta girl's body shook, with excitement or anxiety, she didn't know. Rolling inverted and pull back on the yoke, the V38 made a split-s and started back towards the foundry and TIEs. Even with the inertial dampeners, Inari could feel the slight pressure of G-forces push her back into her seat. That was it. She _was_ scared. This was all too real for her, however she didn't have the luxury to back out. Inari swallowed her fear down her throat and throttled the thrust, increasing their air-speed.

Scanning the sky, the girl caught site of something glisten a little down and to the right. Inari Looked to the boy for second - now at the ready with the V38's main cannons - then back to the canopy. Suddenly, two TIE fighters zoomed pass them, streaking through at top speed. The Togruta's console detected the pair continue on for a moment, then bank slowly to their left to come around on the V38's tail. Inari turned with them, but worried if this was all really a trap. There was still two more TIEs in the after them that weren't accounted for. However, the immediate threat was more pressing. The Togruta girl couldn't remember how many dogfights she had engaged in on the simulators that started like this.

Now the fighting starts... ...

Head of them, the lead TIE moved into a tighter left turn, but his less experience wingman can't seem to keep up and is left to fend for himself. He starts to fell into the V38's firing envelope as the boy moved the sights on the targeting computer onto the TIE. His console bleeped intermediately, _whop whop whop whop_, then changed into a even toned _wwwhhhooopp_! The boy fired the cannons, beams of ember bolts soared through the air towards the TIE... ...and missed.

"You call that shot!!!!"

"Feh...the cannons aren't aligned!" The youth grunted out and started fussing with his controls, "Give me a second to fix them!!"

"We don't have a second!!!"

The TIE started to dive. Inari kept on him, trying to in position for the boy to setup another shot after he aligned the cannons. The girl's terminal suddenly screamed and flashed a warning light. Nine o'clock high, another element of TIEs were diving down on the V38, cannons flaring. The ambush Inari was afraid of, as she throttled and rolled into a grueling left turn. The G's hit the two in the cockpit, their weight doubled and the boy stopped what he was doing for a second. Only a second, though. They die if he did truly stop. The Togruta girl's console tracked the two TIE's over shoot them, moving too fast to match the V38's match the turn.

_Four to one...okay...I've done worst..._ Inari thought as she level out and pitched to a swipe climb.

The V38 soared straight up, a pure vertical climb up into the dark sky. The Togruta flew up a couple of kilometers and level out again, rolling upside down to look out the top of the canopy and see what was below. There were a pair TIEs were making a descending left turn to their left - seemingly perplexed as to where the V38 had gone - and the two TIEs had joined up again and were climb up towards them. The two diving down were more vulnerable to attack, so Inari decided to dive down and attack them first. She could do this, she had do his, she **can** does this! Nosing down, the V38 rockets past the blur ascending TIEs and dives down towards the ground like missile. Around 300 meters Inari begins to pull out of the dive, the G's weigh on them twice their mass, but the craft did seem to want to level out. The girl yanked back on the yoke hard and hard into her gut. The V38 finally responds and the Togruta pulls up on the first pair of TIEs six o'clock.

"Cannons?" She posed to her copilot as the TIEs in front of them turned hard left, trying to shake them.

"Give me another second." Inari maneuvers the craft for the boys attack. He was still working furiously at his controls of the weapons terminal, gritting his teeth as he reset power supplies and typed in equations into the computer, "Move the fighter in twenty degrees off the TIE. We should hit them then."

"I thought you said you were going to fix it!"

"I did the best I can! SO DO IT!!!"

Inari groans and pitches up, make an barrel rolled to the outside of the TIEs turn and moves onto one of them. Green cannon shots jump from their dagger-shaped wings and slammed into the TIE, erupting it a fireball and for an instant the girl smiles. The next instant, a stream of bolts dance over V38's canopy. The other pair of TIEs were diving on them from 8 o'clock high, a nightmarish repeat of the previous trap. Inari pitches down and rudders the craft to the left, cutting under the attacking TIEs' turn. Plummeting towards the ground, the girl jams the yoke back and hits the after-burners. The climbs straight up, double the thrust, and streaks past the two TIEs. The V38 levels out a kilometer up and rolls over on his back. Inari caughts two of the TIEs regrouping and the second bugging out.

"I'm detecting two ARC-One-Seventies coming straight for us! Starboard!!" Inari looks forward out the front to where the boy had indicated as a pair of long winged fighters raced at them. She herself freeze.

_Oh! Come on!!_

The Togruta girl turns into the coming crafts as they launched series torpedoes, four bright comets streak towards the V38. But none of the torpedoes locked onto them and they glide harmlessly over head. Inari blinked for second, then remembered that proton torpedoes were meant for taking out capital ships and space stations, not fighter-to-fighter combat. Noobs... The ARC-170s soon throttled away, zoom back to what every base they came from. The girl thought about following suit, bugging out and trying their chances of the TIEs following, but something in Inari stopped her. Maybe it was the boy's kill-them-all attitude rubbing off or her species' natural aggression shining through, but the Togruta wanted those TIEs and she was meaning to get them.

Three hundred meters below, the two TIEs were come up underneath the V38's position. This was Inari's chance. She noses down and dives on the TIEs, zooming straight for them. They bank left, trying to force the V38 to over shoot. The Togruta girl pitches up and barrel rolls to the outside, then zoomed to 20 degrees off one the TIEs. The boy didn't need to be told, he fired the cannons. The TIE explodes into flames, the lead TIE breaks hard left. However, side of the fallowing, Inari barrel rolls to the right again.

"**Hey**! Stay on him! I can get him!!" The boy barks over his shoulder, but the girl ignores him. She dives the craft down on the TIE and zooms a little over a hundred meters from the lead TIE.

"See if you can miss now..." Inari smirked.

"Feh... ..."

The emerald shots soared and the TIE vaporized into a fireball. Inari banked the V38 right to avoid, still getting a little cooked as they past it, but flew away undamaged. The Togruta girl released a heavy sigh in relief as she started passing away from the foundry, full throttle. The boy looked back at her, total calm, as though this whole flight was uneventful. He didn't even look appreciative of her flying! Inari wanted to punch that bored face.

"Head to the Alien Protection Zone..." He commanded quietly.

"Why?" The girl scowled at the boy.

"The Imperial Army doesn't have any authority in the sector. It will take them sometime to get through the red tape and follow. By then, we'll be well off their radar..."

The Togruta nodded and banked the V38 for the one neighborhood Inari knew by heart, her only home on Coruscant that was still left... ...

* * *

Drakka was running at full stride behind her master, panting and sweating underneath her heavy robs. Master Fel'Kona had insisted that she wear them and the Zarbrak girl didn't even object. The robs help calm her thoughts a little, reminding her of the days at the Academy when Drakka could walk the streets in peace. That had felt so long ago now, and so many have died in the war and the purge since then. The girl could feel her saber bouncing against her hip as she ran, hitting her leg in a differed from the beats of her heart. Her blood throbbed in her head, Drakka could hear it with her ears. _Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump!_ She swallowed. The Zarbrak's throat was dry and her saliva did little to help her. Drakka and her master neared an outcrop of stone that was in the middle of the island they had been live on since coming to Lehon. The sharp pain from when the Zarbrak girl first saw the shuttle returned to the back of her head.

Darth Vader was there.

Drakka's boot snagged a low growing branch of a passing bush and she tripped, hitting the ground and receiving face full of the gravel. The girl lyed there, breath into the dirt and didn't attempt to get back to her feet. The Zarbrak wasn't tired. Her was flooding with the memories of destruction of Almas Academy, shortly followed by Order 66 and invasion of the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. The Sith won! The Sith always win!! Drakka didn't fight the Dark Lord of the Sith, she didn't want to die! She wanted to run away. Make Vader chase her all over this planet if he want and try to live for another day, hour, minute... ...

"Drakka, we must go." It was Master Fel'Kona's voice. The Zarbrak girl felt him pulling her back up to her feet and start pulling her along, to the stone outcrop. Drakka dug her heels into the ground and shook her head, but her master gripped her chin between his fingers and made the girl focus onto him. His face was cool and peaceful, "Drakka...what is the Corbet Dictum?" She blinked at the Jedi, though answered as she did during their lessons... ...

"What is, is, without being named."

"What is the Code?"

"There is no emotion;

"there is peace.

"There is no ignorance;

"there is knowledge.

"There is no passion;

"there is serenity.

"There is no chaos;

"there is harmony.

"There is no... ... "

"There is no _death_" Master Fel'Kona finished for the girl, "there is the Force."

Drakka realized her breathing had evened to a steady inhale and exhale. She could sense it being drawing into her lungs and felt the warmth that came as it breathed out. The girl beheld the Force around her, of the life of Lehon. Corrupted by the planet's black past, but it was still the **Force**. Drakka found her center and let the connection fill her, calm her. She was once again focused and at peace.

"I am sorry, Master..." The Zarbrak's head drooped down to her chest in shame.

"Be mindful, Padawan. Evil shall win if you fear it, and Good shall lose if you are blinded by it. The Light Side is about _balance_."

The young Jedi now soothed, the two started again to the stone outcrop. Drakka had been to the outcrop many times, though never found it too impressing. It was atop a rocky bluff that looked out onto a deep open-pit, like that of a stone quarry, and it might had been during Rakata period on Lehon. As Master Fel'Kona and the girl carefully made their way up the bluff, they dropped down to there stomachs and crawled up to the crest of the ridge, gazing out onto the pit. An Imperial shuttle had landed in the middle of the open-pit. Even though Drakka had only seen the model in the spare holozines - that her master would get from very lost, passing smugglers coming through the system - she knew that it was definitely a shuttle from the Empire's navy. Master Fel'Kona retrieved a pair of electrobinoculars from his robes and inspected the craft.

"No tracks." He related in a whisper, "The landing ramp hasn't opened... Inteior systems are still on... ..."

"Are we going to wait for him to come out?" Drakka dropped her head behind a rock and watched the shuttle thoughtfully.

"Vader's not in there... He's _baiting_ us. I'm surprised he didn't take some of his stormtroopers down here with him. We mustn't be much of a threat to him...or we're already in his trap. *Sigh* Stay on guard, and keep hidden. I'm going to work my way across the ridge and call his bluff. Better we meet in open combat than wait for him to ambush us..." The Zarbrak's master slowly crawled backwards and stood up a little ways down from the crest, where he couldn't be seen from the pit. Drakka watched him as he silently ran up to the the rocky slope, frown on her features. A few meters away, he toshed back his electrobinoculars to the girl and called back in a hushed tone, "Keep your guard!"

The Padawan stared after her master, a worry welling in her belly. Master Fel'Kona was getting to old to ran about and fight Sith warriors like he did in the Clone Wars. She took a deep, calming breath and recognized that the Jedi warrior had his experience and the Force to assist him. Drakka would have had gotten in the way if she had went with him. Still, though, she was worried. Master Fel'Kona was all she had left. Daring to sneak a look over the ridge's crest, Drakka saw through the electrobinoculars her master peeking from behind a large boulder a ten meters away from the Imperial shuttle. He had was already in the pit!

_I guess his not that old after all..._ ...

Master Fel'Kona moved out from behind the boulder and started towards the shuttle. His footsteps rang from the pit as he walked carefully over the gravel, no reaction from the craft. The Jedi Master continued, coming closer to reaching the shuttle as Drakka felt herself holding her breath. There was still there is no sign of it's occupant. As Master Fel'Kona moved under the craft, he hesitated, as though waiting for his ramp to open on its own. The girl saw through the electrobinoculars her master pull out his lightsaber and grimace, then his hand struck up and hit the hull of the shuttle. The hatch dropped open with a loud clank and rushing gas. Drakka became more tense as the Jedi carefully step inside the spacecraft. Everything was still. Even the wind seem to have died down. Moments pass with no sign of activity inside the enemy starship. The Zarbark girl watched the craft with the electrobinoculars. The waiting becomes unbearable.

_Has something happened?! He's been in there for too long! Should I go do there?!_

With the aid of the electrobinoculars, Drakka watched the running lights of the shuttle flash on and off. It seemed that the power was being shut off. She surmised that it was better to wait there unit someone came out. Suddenly, something huge and black moved in front of the Zarbrak girl's field of view. Before she could react, a large,

sinister-looking figure loomed over her. Startled, Drakka backs away with horror drawn eyes, then settle her mind and ignites her lightsaber. The humming blue blade springs forth and the girl moved into a defensive stance. From behind his black face mask, a mechanical inhale and exhale sounded as the entity stared down at the Zarbrak from atop his two meter towering shoulders. The sharp pain at the back of Drakka's skull revealed the figure's identity:

Vader... ...

"MASTER!!!" Drakka screamed as she charged the Sith Lord. Even before she finished her first step, the girl halted. Dropping her saber and wrapping her hands around neck, her breath being choked off by some invisible fist. Drakka's body lifted up from the ground into the air as she struggled out a few gasps, "...m-master... mas-ter...!"

"Your master can not help you know, girl." Vader declared as he held out an arm from his cloak. An eerie red glow cast over them, his lightsaber reared back.

"VADER!!"

The Sith Lord twisted around and deflected the intended deathblow, emerald green striking against crimson red in blinding flash. Drakka dropped back down to the ground in a heap, air returning to her lungs with a raspy breath. Then she watched, agape, as her teacher dueled the dreaded dark warrior. Mastert Fel'Kona flicked his blade up in a powerful two-handed arch, but Vader parried with a slash downward and thrust up with his red humming death. Her master side-stepped his left and spun away from saber, bring his weapon up for another slice his opponent's unprotected shoulder. The Sith Lord twisted knocked the slash with a upward cut, then outstretched his palm to Master Fel'Kona's chest. Drakka gasped as she saw her master be sent flying backwards, rolling down the slope to the bottom of the open-pit. Vader followed him with slowly, heavy steps.

"Master Minos Fel'Kona" The evil Vader proclaimed as he walked down the slope, "My master said that you were a great researcher into the Dark Side of the Force, unraveling the mysteries of Darth Rivan and other Sith. He said that you were also very powerful in the Force... He seems to have had overestimated you."

"Their are greater strengths than power, Dark Lord!" Master Fel'Kona retorted as he stood back onto his feet, deactivating his lightsaber, "I am the Force's faithful knight, the Light Side flows through me."

"As arrogant as all the rest... ..."

Drakka blinked from atop the ridge as her master took a deep inhale of breath and closed his eyes. His thumbs and forefingers touched each other as the Jedi brought his hands up to the center of the chest. The Sith Lord advanced regardless, looking for a quick kill. Suddenly, Master Fel'Kona lids jumped open and he stretched his arms. A torrent of brilliant lighting soared from the Jedi Master's fingers to his opponent. Vader speedily broked the the streaming bolts with his lightsaber, though he was visibly taken aback. As was Drakka. Her master took the pose again, inhaling and touching his fingers together. The Sith Lord shot out a Force Push at the Jedi, but only his robes seem to be effected by the attack. Master Fel'Kona had become a mountain in the breeze, unmovable. Eyes opening, the Jedi sent another storm across to Vader. The Sith blocked, as before, but his blade only was able to absorb a portion the lighting and the dreaded dark warrior fell to his kneels with a groan as golden electricity rolled over him. The Padawan couldn't believe her eyes!

"You see, Dark Lord. There are strengths that I've realized that you never will." Vader struggled to stand upright, gripping a free arm around his stomach as Sith Lord held his crimson saber from his side. His mechanical breathing seemed to have quicken. Master Fel'Kona gazed at him with empassionate features, neither moved to pity or wrath, simply duty.

"You true are... as arrogant as the rest!"

The sound of creaking metal alerted the Jedi Master to his right as the entire shuttle _tumbled_ across the pit towards Master Fel'Kona. The monk gasped! The Zarbrak's master leapt from the spot he standing at just as the shuttle raced past. Raising to his kneels, the Jedi ignited his saber and barely caught the red humming the Sith's blade as Vader flew down from the skies. Pressing down, the dark lord dropped the two flaring columns of crimson and green closer and closer to Master Fel'Kona's temple. The strain her master's face was too much for Drakka. She reached out with the Force to her saber hilt, pulled it to hand, and raced down the slope. The blue lightsaber jumped to life as the girl raised it above her head for a mighty downward slash atop Vader's helmeted head. The Sith Lord didn't even look at her, he just jerked his head slightly and a stone flew up from the ground. Drakka stumbled back, her face erupting in stinging pain as she fell onto her rear. The Zarbrak girl felt a warmth run down from her nose. Reach a hand up she touched the warmth and brought it back, seeing a smear of dark red. The Padawan gritted her teeth and jumped up to attack again. She wasn't going to stay down just because of a bloody nose!

Drakka slashed an arch at Vader's back, but the dark warrior broke off from Master Fel'Kona and wheeled around to parry. Pivoting around again, Sith Lord is batted away a slice from the Zarbrak's master as he sprang up. The girl attacked once more, sent a downward cut which Vader caught with his saber and pushed back, knocking Drakka a few paces back. The Jedi Master threw a thrust and the Sith was barely made it in time to veer it away. The dreaded dark warrior was laboring with his mechinical breaths, his armor and prosthetics weigh him down a great deal. The Zarbrak girl could see her master's and her's victory, as well as revenge for all the Jedi Vader had slaughtered. She present the attack. Drakka charged the Sith Lord, slicing an arch at him. However, Darth Vader was all the ready for her. Using the Padawan's own momentum, he knocked the blue saber away ploughed his durasteel elbow into the girl's eye. The Zarbrak was knock senseless, and the Sith followed up the elbow with a kick in the abdomen and a Force Push, sending Drakka across the rocky slope. The girl felt herself roll across the ground, head over tail, and finally stopped to lay flat on the ground. She could hear her master and the Sith continue to battle, panting and sending out the occasional yell as their lightsabers scream against each other.

When Drakka pushed herself up and wedged her eyes open, she found that Vader and Master Fel'Kona had broke off and were surveying each other. Who ever noticed a weakness to their advantage and took it would no doubtingly dominate the dual. Vader was facing her way and the Padawan glared at him, the only defiance she could manage at the moment. As her energy returned, Drakka continued to glare, the Sith Lord finally took notice of her as though he just realized who she was. Taking his saber in both hands, Vader brought the crimson blade up before his face and pointed it to the Zarbrak girl. Suddenly a piece of the burning wrecked shuttle jumped up from the hulk and zoomed towards Drakka. She gasped and tried to move, but her legs wouldn't move.

"Drakka!!!!" The girl's master cried, turning around and projecting his hand out. The chunk of metal veered away and Drakka looked back to Master Fel'Kona. His eyes were wide open and his bellowed a silent scream. A column of humming red sliced cleanly and directly through the Jedi Master's chest.

"**MASTER**!!!!!!" The Sith yanked the saber from her master, kicking him to his knees.

"And you see, like all the rest of your kind..." Vader related down, a scowl in his voice, "You are arrogant and blind to the future of the Sith... ...And even worst...your _weak_..."

"...ahh, the future you said...I can see now...yes..." Master Fel'Kona coughed up a stream of blood, soaking his chin in red. But he smiled, "The Force...has granted me a look...glimpse at a perfect future... ... So ironic! Ha! *Cough!* *Cough!* *Cough!!* Oh, it hurts...to laugh... ..."

"Then let your _glimpse_ sullen you in the **grave**!!"

Vader struck his blade down, Drakka clench her eyes shut. She hear the body drop, the unceremonious and all too real. The girl didn't want to look, she could never look, she hadn't the ability to look. A new series of sounds graced her ears. The sound of heavy footsteps, crunching across the gravel and rocks along the slope. The Padawan gasped! With every fiber and scrape of energy she could muster into her legs, Drakka flew up and shot away. Up the slope, over the ridge, and down the other side. With her eyes still clenched, the only thing guiding the Zarbrak girl was the Force, but even that was jumbled mess. Her heart burned and felt shattered. Her focus was gone, her core of peace and calm was gone. The Dark Side of Lehon filled her, sinking deep into her with each passing step. Drakka didn't know where she was going, she didn't know where she was anymore.

She was lost...her master, dead.

* * *

"Master? I found an extra blanket in the cargo hold I was in."

Starkiller looked up at his holodroid caretaker as he held out a dark wool blanket. The boy shook his head, the one he had was enough. The Togruta girl had taken them to the Twi'lek neighborhood of the Alien Protection Zone, which pleasantly surprised him. It was one of the poorest of the poor with plenty of places to hid. At the moment, they occupied an abandoned apartment complex near the center of the neighborhood. The V38 was parked atop the roof or what was left of it. Most of the build had been demolished, only half the it's apartments still existed...sorta. They were lucky enough to find one with _three_ walls. The youth didn't complain, though, since he lived in worst places and at least they had a roof. The girl was in one of the two corners, shivering under her blanket as she managed a slumber.

_That girl...what is it about her?_ The young warrior thought to himself

He was studying her face and the strange markings on it. White marks, a contrast to her orange skin, that made straight and curved lines across her cheeks and forehead. It was the same exact design as late Senator Amurth, though his was dark blue on his sun-kissed human skin. It didn't seem ugly on her as it did on the senator, however. They seemed...complementary on the girl. As did her horns, that PROXY had said were _montral_, and her head-tails, also know as _lekku_. This Togruta girl had a all new language to her appearance, alone. What that why he enjoyed gazing and studying her?

"Master?" PROXY interrupted the Starkiller's reflections. The droid had moved over to the Togruta girl and was gently laying the extra blanket over her, "I was just wonder when you were going to kill the princess, here? Lord Vader told you terminate her, did he not??"

"... ..." Why hadn't he killed her? Was see too interesting to look at and analysis that the boy forgot to carry out his master's command? He was even more perplexed than before, "... We'll need someone to fly the fighter again, right? You can't and I can't, but _she_ certainly can. I'll kill her when get the army and whoever else off our tail."

"Yes, Master."

It was the most logical solution: necessity. It was the only reason PROXY stayed with him and why the boy was allowed to stay with his master, Darth Vader. When the need is no longer there, the resource is discarded away. Eliminated to make room another or for nothing at all. One day, Starkiller help his master kill the Emperor and he will no longer be need by the Dark Lord of the Sith. By all the Dark Side's traditions, he should then try to destroy Vader, but the boy never had such an ambition. He would let himself die, with the knowledge that he played his small part in his master's plans. That was the fate Starkiller wished to choose.

But if the girl choose differently...well...that was just too bad for her... ...

* * *

Author's Note: Drakka Jurdarrl is a character from Star Wars Galaxies and her "master" (my complete invention) is Minos Fel'Kona is a character from the Star Wars RPG, Living Force. Their is no canon to connect these Jedi, but their always no canon to refute it. So...why not? I like it, and I like Drakka going to Almas Academy. That's why I wrote it and it is a fanfiction. I'm allowed a little liberty with these things.

Review!!


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: All rights to Star Wars George Lucas. All rights to English England.

* * *

Major Ranulph Demici wasn't a man who was easily impressed by acts of terrorism. However, gazing at the destruction of former Senator Amurth's apartment, the Imperial pilot was astonished. He watched as dozens of forensic officers picked through hundreds of pieces plaster and durasteel. The room looked as though a bomb had exploded within it, but Demici was told only a single individual was responsible for it. A platoon of Stormtroopers was flying about, documenting the state of the apartment and tagging objects before wrapping them up in a forensic wrap and containers. The major continued to survey the senator's ruined study, pointing a glance to a pair of troopers on the balcony who were zipping up a body length black bag...Senator Amurth.

The morning light was now just flowing into the study as the troopers and officers worked away. Demici had been lucky, getting to the scene before the Coruscant Guard or Army had a chance to secure the site. Though investigations on the Imperial Center was under the jurisdiction of the Guard, when a possible Jedi was involved every section of the military threw their hat into the ring. An it was a ring, a slug match to get to the Force-sensitive before some other department got to him. The Emperor's grace fell on those who could capture or kill a Jedi, and Major Demici was keen on keeping Imperial praise on the Navy and his Majesty's Stormtroopers. That was were favor should be going, the Imperial pilot knew, since the Imperial Navy and cloned Stormtrooper Corps were the actual workhorses of the Empire. The Army was an oversize police force/babysitting service for Imperial planets.

As the Stormtroopers carried the deceased Senator Amurth passed the major, he couldn't help but smell the charred flesh of the corpse. Reaching his dark gloved hand over his mouth, Demici took a moment recollect himself. The Imperial was a starfighter pilot, a proud service in the Navy, one far away from the carnage of the battlefield. Quickly running his hands down his black uniform, the major's eyes caught the bright yellow of the patch on the end of his sleeve. Shaped in the form of shield, with a red five-pointed star aiming downwards, the Demici family chest shone loudly against the black fabric. The major was a prodigious member of a Great House on Serenno, one of only six. He was proud of his heritage, Ranulph Demici's peers said he was arrogant because it. But the Imperial never let either opinion go his had.

The mortician troopers slipped through the doorway as another figure passed into the room. Demici gaze was caught by this new person's dark robes, covered by another short set of bright red robes. A male human with modest length, golden hair and chiseled features of softly tanned skin. A handsome foe in his youth, the major supposed, probably sending the ladies into a frizz. Had he not being a Jedi then, of course. The man's silver chromed lightsaber rested on his belt next his black leather gloves, a testament to his old and present lives: Jedi Knight and Imperial Inquisitor... ...

"Inquisitor Hister" Demici called over to the Dark Jedi, "I was hopping that Imperial Intelligence hadn't caught note of the senator's usual death."

"Ah, my good friend, Major Demici!" The robed man beamed in his accented Basic, quickly crossing the distance between Imperial pilot and he, "We wouldn't be Imperial _Intelligence_ if we buried our heads into the sand, now, would we. I can only imagine what could have happen here, though...I sense lingering remnant of a **presence**... Any information?" The Inquisitor stared down at the major, head lower his inferior, who could have simply ordered an answer from Demici. He could order around a Moff.

"From the security scanners, we were able to surmise that one unauthorized assailant entered through the waste chute and engaged in battle with apartment's security measures."

"Security...measures?"

"Assault droids with a reciprocating quad blaster turrets." Hister cocked an eyebrow at the Imperial pilot. It wasn't a usually item on a senator's defensive mechanism, being that it could decimate a company of troopers. Demici went on, "From the security recordings, the assailant seem to manage with them with quite an ease."

"So it is a Jedi... "

"It's our best guess, sir."

Hister slowly walked to the middle of the ruined study, stepping over rubble and crevices in the floor. His eyes were closed, head tilted, as though some distance sound was escaping him. Everyone in the room halted what they were doing and watched the Dark Jedi as he took deep breath in waved his fingers through the air. Lids open, the Inquisitor exhaled, staring up at the ceiling with wide drawn eyes. Yes...his eyes...Demici noticed his eyes _change_. Normally they were a deep blue - no doubt adding to his women's appeal - but some times that shifted to sickly yellow with piercing glare coming from them. The Imperial pilot got a chill whenever he saw the change. There was power behind those eyes, just waiting to be released.

"Their it is...yes..." Hister's voice whisper, though it filled the room, "Despair...determination..._betrayal_... ...The senator, yes. He thought that Empire sent the assailant...he wasn't though...I can feel _him_ now...so young..."

"Was it a Jedi rebels, then?" The major almost didn't what to ask the Inquisitor in his current state, but he risked it anyhow, "An attack on the Senate, a statement against the Empire??"

"I sense only...loyalty...obedience to his master...and..." The Dark Jedi looked down and smile with sinister joy, "...and **Dark Side**...!"

"The Dark Side? So the assailant isn't a Jedi?" Hister shut is eyes again and gripped his forehead. A moment later, his pools shone the usual blue and the Dark Jedi breathed a tired sigh.

"What I'm saying, Major Demici, is that friend is powerful and lets his emotions strengthen him. And he is not under the command of the Emperor..."

"Inquisitor...a word?" The Imperial pilot and his superior took a corner that was still standing in the room, away from the forensic teams and Stormtroopers, "This isn't some operation by Intelligence is it, sir? I know Senator Amurth was a prominent opponent to a few security budget increases. Perhaps a Force-sensitive from the Imperial Security Bureau, even?"

"If Imperial Intel wanted Amurth dead, we wouldn't waste a Inquisitor's time. And I know for a fact that the ISB would never take on a Force user. This is a _private_ assassin for some higher-up."

Demici rubbed his thumb over his inside of palm thoughtfully. Hister had revealed a concerning development, something the whole thing even messier. If the major ignored this unknown Force-sensitive, his superiors would tear him apart...literally. Though, an investigation might lead as far as someone on the Imperial Ruling Council, and upsetting them would be as deadly as his superiors. Demici will have to tread lightly, with each step made carefully.

"There's something else you should know, Major..." Hister related, the Imperial pilot looked up to him, "The assassin is traveling with someone else. Someone _weak_, and she doesn't know a thing about this individual."

"_She_?"

* * *

Morning at Zhar's Dinner wasn't a treat for most, but Twi'leks got to eat. The restaurant was packed with it's regulars, a rainbow of skin tones, chewing down fried fungus and Ryloth Bantha Biscuits. Surprising tasty, considering, especial you used Zhar's original sauce. Leth was busy writing orders and clearing tables, keeping a close eye on the wall chrono for when his classes started. The breakfast rush had always had the young Twi'lek working before school, he found it to be the least he could do for his parents and their dinner. His parents paid substantial fee for seeing the red skin boy to school, seeing that the Empire didn't spend a cent on "alien" education. Someday, though, Leth knew that he would have to leave Zhar's, maybe Coruscant all together. He would go out into the galaxy and became someone important, with a real future. A writer, or a journalist, or perhaps even a lawyer. Traveling from world to world, representing enslaved races and oppressed peoples in the cold Imperial courts that viewed aliens as second class citizens of the universe. Maybe Leth would do that one day. Whatever the case he would get away from the Imperial Center, and take Inari with him.

Inari... ...

Leth stop a moment from first saw the Togruta girl, he was awestruck by her. Her perfect smile, her dark emerald eyes, her angel voice, the cute patterns on her face, it was beautiful. Inari was gem with no equal, a treasure in the universe, goddess on the mountain top. And Leth was a nerd... ...sigh. It wasn't a matter of being physical unattractive, the red boy inherited his mother's looks. And she had once being the prize of the wealth Black Sun vigo, Ziro the Hutt, before Coruscant law caught up with him. At the risk of making the Twi'lek sound pompous, Leth was catch! Except...of course...he could to girls. _A _girl, really. Inari effected the red boy more so than simple making his heart beat faster. His lips seemed to clamp tight around her, and a lump would form at the back of his throat that needed to be constantly swallowed down. It was horrible, Leth couldn't even speak clear to the girl for the first month she came to the Dinner. But, as time past, the Twi'lek youth became more relaxed around Inari and the two become friends. Sigh...just friends... ...

Shaking his mind back to the moment at hand, Leth moved to a newly opened table and started whipping it clean and stacking plates on his arm. It was a difficult talent to pick up, even harder to master. However, the boy preformed it like a pro, piling seven plates on top of each other in one arm as he whipped the table clean with a damp cloth. It was one of those tricks that children raised in restaurants develop, as well as negotiating a busy dinner with a stack of piles on one's arm. Leth managed it with ease, walking around the counter and into the kitchen. The boy's mother was working away on a bowl of purple fungus, fingers sunk deeply into the spices and mix as she hummed a tune. Her dark red skin shone around the bland apron and the rolled up sleeves of her tunic. His mother was still the lovely site, despite baring child fifteen years ago, Ziro sure thought as though. If the Zhar had step up and saved the woman from a life of continued slavery, Leth and his mother would have followed in Ziro's unpleasant fate.

"Leth! Hurry up!" His mother related with a smile, prompting the boy in her Twi'leki accented Basic, "More customers are sure to be coming and you mustn' be made late for your classes trying to take all their orders."

"Right, Mom!"

Leth trod over to the kitchen's sizable and gentle placed the pile of plates in quarter filled lukewarm water before turning to dash back out the door. His mother grinned at the boy as he went by, proud look in her eyes. She often said she couldn't have hopped for more from a son, a five star student and respectable to elders. Leth never put too much thought to it. He knew only hard work and a good education would give him a future, and he had his parents to thank for providing his schooling. The Twi'lek youth wanted to continue to work hard to one day return their efforts and provide for their retirement. It was only right, he surmised. As the red boy walked past kitchen swinging doors, he noted the Dinner's entrance push open and moved to greet the new customers.

"Welcome to Zhar's...Inari?" Leth blinked as his Togruta friend walked through the door, "W-What are you doing here...?"

"Oh, Leth. By the Force, itself..."

Inari looked as though she was going to say more, but stopped and looked over her shoulder. Behind the girl was a tall, blue female Twi'lek in brown leather Twi'lek clothing. Beside her was a boy about Leth's age dressed in a long dark robe, a hood covering most of his features. The red skin boy gazed at both of strangers, his lekku up in confusion as to who they could possibly be. He looked to Inari again and her disorganized state. She looked as though she didn't get a full-night's sleep and was wearing a old tunic, a few sizes too big for her.

"I-Inari...what's going on-" Leth started, however the other boy interrupted him with a command... ...

"Get us a table. Three of us..."

The Twi'let nodded and lead them to a empty booth on the other side of the Dinner. Sitting themselves down, Leth placed a flimsiplast menu, mostly out of habit. The Twi'lek woman very interested in the menu as she picked it up and studied it closely. The red boy didn't know if he should continue prying for answers from his Togruta friend, leave the three of them alone, or take their orders. The robed boy glared at Leth from the corner booth, the shadow of his hood was unable to hide the blaze in his eyes.

"Give us a minute or two to order." The boy proclaimed to Leth, folding his arms in front of himself in a sign of stubborn stance.

"Inari, did something happen?" The Twi'lek youth ignored the robed one, gazing attentively to the girl.

"It's nothing, Leth... ...Really." The Togruta stared down at the table surface as she spoke, "Just give us a minute, ok?" Before red boy could reply, he heard his father's voice call over to them.

"Inari! By the Hell winds of the Bright Lands!!" The older gray Twi'lek rush over to the booth and right up to the girl. Leaning down to her level, Zhar went on, "I read what happen to your uncle on Holonet! I'm sorry, little Nerra..."

"... ..." Inari frowned at the table top as her body tensed up. Leth looked to Zhar, lost as to what his step-father was talking of.

"Wha' really happen to him, Nerra? I know their saying tha' rebel terrorist were behind it, but really happened?" The Twi'lek looked up and seemed to finally notice the other two occupants in the booth, "An' who are these? Your friends?"

"Their...here to keep an eye on me..." Inari turned to the blue Twi'lek woman and then to the robed boy.

"We've being keeping after the Togruta princess here since Senator Amurth was killed by the Coruscant Guard." The female Twi'lek related with a smile. Her words had the type of Twi'leki accent to them as Leth's mother's.

"Ah! So it was the Empire!!" The boy's father straighten up and gripped his hands into fists, "I thought so! Tha' poor man, who did nothing else but speak ou' for Togruta and alien righ's...*sigh*. Tha's the times we live in, I guess... ..." Zhar seemed to cool down, though the red boy could see from his lekku that he was still frustrated, "So, you two are wha'? Colleagues of Amurth?? Ones tha' he didn't meet often but enough for the Empire to catch a scent...?"

"Something like that..." The robed boy replied quietly. Leth had enough wit about him to know that his father was asking if the woman and the youth were rebel associates of Inari's uncle.

"Our superior wanted us to meet with Senator Amurth" The blue Twi'lek joined in, "When my young master was at his apartment, a Imperial gunship suddenly arrived and blasted the senator." The older gray Twi'lek nodded and cocked a inquisitive lek up.

"Are you from the homeworld?" Zhar inquired, "Your Basic is good, bu' the mother tongue sounds pretty strong in your mouth."

"Why, yes! I'm acutely apart of Clan Secu-" The robed boy shoved his elbow into the woman's shoulder, prompting her to shut up.

"He doesn't need the whole backstory..._Aayla_..." The youth growled from under his cowl. Leth blinked, the woman's name sounded familiar.

"Well, wha'ever the case, I can breathe a sigh knowing little Orange Nerra is safe with you." His father beamed softly, "Wha'ever you wan'! On the house!!" Zhar placed a hand on Inari's shoulder as he looked down at her. She glanced up at the older Twi'lek with a piteous face, "And Nerra here can stay with us as long as she needs."

"No! Zhar, I can't!!" The Togruta girl all but yelled back, "I didn't come here to hidout! I don't want to put you, Leth, and Rasuma at risk!"

"We'll take whatever you can give us..." The robed boy related. Inari glared back at him.

"I'm not going to drag them into whatever your apart of! They're my friends and-" The girl stopped as the youth raised a hand up to her face.

"We'll take whatever."

Inari turned away and scowled down at the table, but stay silent none the less. The red skin Twi'lek boy frown as he watch his friend. Even if he hadn't had a crush on the her, Leth held the Togruta girl with a lot of respect and hated to see her being put down like that. He wanted speak up, tell it to the robed boy and give him a piece of his mind. Leth tried to make a retort, but he couldn't force himself to do it. This wasn't some essay argument, where stylus and datapad formed barred any nasty confrontations. This was the real world, the world where speaking your mind might get you more than what you're counting for. The boy felt like scum as he looked to Inari. He was pathetic.

"Ge' their orders, Leth" The older Twi'lek said, "I'll go bac' to the grill and cook it up fast and fine."

"R-Right..." Leth nodded as his father left. He turned first to the blue Twi'lek female, pad up to take her order, but she waved him off. The red boy then turned to the robed one with scowl... ...

"Whatever...it doesn't matter..." The youth glanced to some of the other customers, enjoying their breakfast meals, "...just not _fungus_..."

"Rycrit bacon then..." Finally Leth turned to the Togruta girl with coy smile. Inari had the flimsi menu between her hands and was looked over different choices that surely knew by heart by now.

"I'll have...the fried Krek beetles with honey mushrooms on the side. A number nine with extra jart strips, a fungus combo plate, a side order of Munch-fungus toast, and a large glass of Ryloth blue milk to drink. Oh! And a order of roast gornt with plenty of sauce, please!" The table was silent as they all looked at Inari in agape stares, "What? I didn't eat since last night! And with all I've been through, I deserved a nice big meal!!"

"Feh...as long as the old Twi'lek is footing the bill..." The robed youth groaned as he leaned into his corner of the booth, "Though I don't know how your princess..."

"Are you trying to say something!" The Togruta pointed a glare at the boy.

"Just that it's hard to believe your called a princess if you eat like starved sarlacc."

"I have good mind to pouch you in the face, just to prove to you that I'm princessy!"

"How would that make you princessy!!"

"Master...princess..." The Twi'lek woman raised her hands up and tried to come the two, "I would not believe that this is the place for such a..._conversation_."

"Stay out of this PROXY!"

"Pro-xy?" Leth blinked at Inari, a lek cocked up in confusion. The Togruta gasped and realized what she had called the Twi'lek woman.

"Umm...PROXY, that's right..." The girl fumbled in response, "That's...her...nickname?"

"Er...Right! Of course."

_Nice going, Leth_, The red skin boy scolded himself, _Upset the poor girl! That well get her like you!! Idiot..._

"I-I'll go give Dad your orders...!" The Twi'lek youth related and made over to the counter. As Leth moved around the counter, his step-father stuck his head out a small window leading to the kitchen. The red boy smiled and handed him the three's orders.

"The Force must be favoring little Nerra if she was able to escape tha' insanity that done in her uncle." Zhar looked over the pad his step-son gave, then glanced back at the him, "Maybe it's time you told her already."

"What are you talking about?" The gray Twi'lek wasn't making any sense to the boy.

"You know. Confess your loving feelings for her, son."

"WHAT?! **DAD**!!"

Leth felt his face flush, thought it might had turned a shade or two redder. The Twi'lek youth twisted his head to the Togruta girl back at the booth. She was glaring again at robed boy, saying something as he simply turned away from her and slumped down into the booth's corner. Perhaps it was time tell her, considering what happened to her uncle. Inari should there was somebody around to will do anything to help her and to tell her that he loved her. Leth flushed again with the thought of telling the girl such a thing. To say that he loved Inari, right to the Togruta. The red skin boy was beginning to think that he might just be able to turn this tragedy into something special... ...

* * *

Marching across Lehon's spotted landmasses, waves white polished armor scowered the dark tropical planet for the lone Padawan. Vader was trailing behind twenty troopers as they combed a long stretch of beach of the island that the Sith Lord had killed Fel'Kona on. The Zarbrak girl would be found, Vader knew it was just a matter of time. That hadn't stop his frustrations, though. Before being cursed to the lowly form he was now had restricted his movements to the bare manageable, his heavy limbs and armor weigh considerably on the dark warrior. In a past life, he would had easily run the youngling down. The past constantly haunted the Sith Lord, it and all it's death. Only the future of power that his master promised left Vader life to continuing living.

Power by any means. Power of the Dark Side.

The dark warrior scanned the beached, catching site of primitive-style hut, the latest looking structure on the dead world. Mechinical breath sounding harder, he stomped up the sand to the hut. Vader pushed aside a curtain of plant-fiber cloth to find the interior of a modest size dwelling. The Stormtroopers had appeared to have searched the hut prior. What little hand-made furniture there was had been turned over and broken. Mates of grass and palm leafs torn apart and scattered across the sand floor. As the Sith Lord entered he sensed the bids of the Light Side cling to hut, the last remnants of Minos Fel'Kona on the black planet that would soon fade away into Lehon's darkness. As would the Jedi's Padawan. For a fleeting moment, Vader wondered what life was like for Fel'Kona and that girl as they lived their days on Lehon together. Had they trained together? Had they meditate together? Had laughed and joked together? Just like Master Kenobi and him before the war, before...the end. It was only a moment. The sudden wail of the Sith Lord's holoprojector jumped his attention to his belt. Taking the device into his hand and holding it a loft, an image of Vader's dark pupil formed in the blue light. The student knelt and bowed his head, nearly touching the ground he stood on, as he should in his master's presence.

"Report." The Sith Lord ordered and Starkiller pulled his face up slightly.

"My master...our base in the Works was attacked..."

"You were **followed**!"

"Forgive me, Master..." Vader forgo striking out at his pupil with the Force. He was in a position to punishment the boy so far from the Core Worlds.

"Where are you now." The dark warrior demanded.

"I am in the Alien Protection Zone, the Twi'lek neighborhood..." Starkiller hesitated for moment. The Sith Lord cocked a non-existing eyebrow behind his face mask, "...I am with Togruta girl..."

"What?! She is _still_ alive!!"

"I needed someone to pilot the emergency starfighter from the hideout. She proved able to fly the craft... ... Shall I kill her now, Master?"

"_What! Hey, wait a minute!!_" A new voice rang over the hololink. Vader blinked as a Togruta female appeared next to Starkiller, standing with her arms crossed as she scowled up at the Sith Lord.

"This is of **no** concern to you, girl-" The dark warrior related but the Togruta cut in quickly.

"Like it _is_! Your the one who told him" Her thumb pointed to his pupil, "to kill _me_!! But I saved his life inside! What to think of that!"

"Don't think that your pitiable feats bare on me..." Vader pointed down at the Togruta holo-image as his tone lowered, "Nor that your the daughter of a Shili chieftain. You are nothing to me."

* * *

"Like that's going to work on me."

Back at the Twi'lek neighborhood, the apartment behind Zhar's Dinner, Inari was facing down with realistic holo of the boy's master. Or facing up. PROXY had _became_ tall, black armor and capped figure that the young Force user bowed to. When the boy went to secluded room of the apartment with the droid, saying that he need to contact his master, the girl insisted to be there too. She hadn't expected PROXY to change into the imposing figure he was now, but it had made sense, being the _holodroid_ that he was. Inari glared up at the dark man as he breathed out heavy, mechanical exhales, hands on his hips as he stared back at the Togruta girl with his sinister mask. The boy's master had a voice that carried more even more an ominous feel with it, but girl was afraid of a hologram. Inari assumed that he was more flash than substance, anyway.

"I understand the score here" The Togruta girl continued, "You probably sent this guy here to murder my uncle, huh?" She glanced down to the boy for conformation and received a scowl from him. That was all Inari need to see. It was true. She sighed and looked back up to the tall mass of armor, "I guess someone beat you to a punch, right? Well...I know that Uncle Amurth wouldn't care about getting revenge for his death, so I'll just be glad to get out of this mess as fast as possible. So I'll promise to never tell anyone about you or your student or PROXY, ok? Never as long as I live, and I can go free."

"This isn't some childish game, girl." The dark man pointed his finger down at Inari again, right into her face, "Your life is _not_ negotiable! You will die **now**!!"

Without a word, the boy stood up and drew his lightsaber. It's crimson blade lite the small with red as the youth lifted it above his head, readying to strike. Inari gasped step back and hit the wall with her back. It was a very small room of Zhar's very small apartment. Gazing into the boy's face, the girl saw nothing but the young warrior's burning eyes and the cool determination to follow his master's command. It couldn't end like this!

"Wait! Please!! You still need me!" Her pleas didn't stop the boy from taking a step closure to her doom, "That fighter! You can't fly it without me! You'll get caught..."

"I am _nothing_ but my master's instrument, fashioned for his use..." He replied in cold whisper, "I live for _him_ and die when _he_ calls... ..."

"But thats...not living..."

Of all the sensations and emotions that the Togruta girl had felt at that moment, she was surprised to feel sympathy for her killer. Was it weird to feel compassion for someone who described themself as a tool, total nothing without a master. The boy couldn't have been much older than she was, this was his _life_? Inari would never wish such a fate on anybody. Even the suffering thought they deserved better and everyone desired to live. He desired to be _used_. As the young warrior dropped his blade down to her, no to escape, Inari could help but feel sorry for this nameless boy.

"WAIT!"

* * *

The holo-image of Starkiller halted in Vader's hand at his command. He had sensed something. On the other side of the galaxy, through empty space, the Sith Lord had detected something from his pupil that hadn't a expected from him. It was beginning of future prospect, a light in the blackhole that Vader had made the boy's spirit into. That familiar sensation, however deep it was in the youth, couldn't be hidden from him. Vader knew it too well, how it had grew like a cancer in his heart and lead him to the dark path he was on now. A connection...an _attachment_. To the Jedi, it was forbidden, but for the Sith it was tool. The first tastes of the Dark Side of the Force was achieved through ones strong attachments and through the proper manipulations they lead deep into the darkness. And now, unlikely as it was, this girl had the potential to become such an attachment for the boy. A wise Sith never overlook such a corrupting prospect for his pupil.

"Starkiller, I have new mission for you." Darth Vader proclaimed over his mechinical breathing.

"Yes, my master..." The young warrior deactivated his saber and dropped to his knees towards Sith Lord in a bow. Such a loyal child... ...

"The matter of the rebel organization you had said before that Amurth was apart of his troubling..." The dark warrior had to be tactful. He could not simply order the boy to develop feelings for the Togruta, "I will come to you on Coruscant and begin a investigation, but I haven't the time to go around the galaxy to weed out a _possible_ threat to the Empire. You will go in my stead."

"Of course, Master... "

"You will not have the luxury of using Imperial resources, so take the girl. Use her however you need, but you are **not** to kill her. The girl's life is meaningless to me, though, I will be **most** displeased if you were to dispose of her before my order!"

"It shall be done, as you command... ..."

"Hey, wait a minute..." The Togruta interjected, "Don't I get a say in this? This is a whole lot different than the deal I suggested!"

"I am altering the deal." The Sith Lord retorted, jabbing his finger at the girl, "_Pray_ I don't alter it further!" Not even waiting for an response, Vader switched the frequency on the holoprojector and commed the Star Destroyer high above Lehon. The image of a man in naval cap and uniform appeared on the device and saluted the Sith Lord, "Lieutenant. Prepare the _Zulfiqar_ for launch on my return. You shall continue the search for the Padawan in my absence."

"Yes, my lord." The officer replied.

Pushing out of Fel'Kona's hut, the dark warrior found himself in a very interesting predicament. The Force had very much in store for his pupil, indeed, and apparently for this little Togruta princess as well... ...

* * *

It was little after mid-day when Inari found herself atop the roof of Zhar's and family's apartment. When PROXY suddenly returned to his true droid form, the boy told the girl to get out. She didn't think twice, she ran right out the door. That had been a few hours ago and Inari had avoided the youth ever since. The Togruta girl gave out a heavy sigh and lied out flat onto the gravel roof of the building. It was definitely strange to be out of school during the middle of the day... ...of all the things to think about. Her uncle was just murdered, she got into true blue dogfight with four TIE fighters, and she was almost cut in two with a lightsaber...twice! Missing school was probably the most normal thing she had done all day!!!

As the gravel dug into her back, Inari looked up into the clouds. The Imperial Center's towering skyscrapers plotted out most of them, but a tiny stretch blue was visible and a few puffy white masses glided lazily across it. The girl remembered laying out in the tall grass on Shili when she was little and staring up at the clouds there. All the different shapes and characters one could makes no two glances skyward the same. It had a certain magic to it for children and Inari loved naming all the cloud people and animals. Even with the refuge of happy memories, the Togruta's mind slipped back to Uncle Amurth's body being riddled with green blaster bolts and falling in a charred pile. Just after, she was carried away by the boy.

_Starkiller...that's what his master called him, right?_ Inari posed quietly to herself, _Why did save life then? To make sure I would tell anyone that he was there? Then again, that gunship would have down the job for him. Was it just an mistake? He jumped and grabbed me by accident... but he did stop there. I carried me to safety and took me to that foundry...where his master told him to kill me._

Just like every boy Inari met, it had confusing and annoying as she got to know him. The girl would have been happy to forget everything and let Starkiller fade back into the hellmouth he came out from. That, unfortunately, didn't seem likely as the boy's master had taking the liberty to up Inari in the youth's care or command or whatever. Could she run from him? Not a chance. Not with the way the boy moved as they eluded the Coruscant Guard. The Togruta girl remembered being told that Jedi had the ability to predict movements other before they did a thing, so Starkiller would probably caught up with her before she made it out the window. He wasn't Jedi, as Inari recalled the young warrior had passionately insisted, however he was close enough not to risk it. As the girl muddled over her ever ruining life, the sound of gravel crushing foot steps alerted Inari to someone's trod towards her.

"I-Iari...?" Moving her head to the side, the Togruta girl found her good friend Leth standing awkwardly a few pace away.

"Leth" Inari pulled herself to sit on her legs as dropped down near her, "I thought that you'd be at Culture Center for classes?"

"I thought th-that-umm...I thought that it was better to stay with you today." He didn't look at her, but down to hands as his fingers fumbled against each other.

"You didn't need to do that. I'm fine, really..."

"I-I know you would get upset with your uncle sometimes f-for um...being to strict? But I know he loved you like a daughter...an-and you loved him, too." The Twi'lek boy glance over to Inari as her stare defocused off her friend. She did love her uncle very much and loved him even more now that he was gone. All the past disagreements and restrictions Uncle Amurth had placed all seemed so pointless now. The girl would have gladly taken them all and more if she were to get her uncle back. No such luck, though, "Have you...cried?"

"What?" She blinked back to reality and looked at Leth, "I don't know...I guess maybe a little."

"When I was little I um...came to Coruscant as a slave..." The boy related, gazing back down to his hands as he rubbed them together, "Well...I g-guess the Republic back then wanted to call us _servants_. I was slave, along with mother, for Ziro the Hutt. We lived separately...in different com-complexes and I was so afraid that I wouldn't see my mom. She keep to see me w-whenever she could...but I was still afraid. I cried every night...e-even though I could had possible see her the next day... ..."

"Oh, Leth." The Togruta girl reached her arms up and wrapped them around Twi'leks neck, hugging him, "I'm so sorry. I never knew."

"I-I'm fine now!" Leth's lekku were flick slightly around Inari, but she could see them properly to see would it could possible mean, "It's better now. Dad bought both of us and we're all happy at Zhar's now! But y-you..." The Twi'lek pulled the girl closure to him. Inari wasn't sure what was trying to accomplish, "Amurth is really gone. You know he's not comeback and...um...I guess deep down it still hurts. A lot."

"Well, yes. But with everything that's happened, I tried not to think about it."

"Think about, now, then..."

The Twi'lek boy reached a hand up and ran his hand down the down the back of her head, from her montrals to her neck. Inari instantly went back to last night, remembering how her uncle gentle stroke the back of her skull, mere minutes for his death. He knew even then that he was going to leave her, to never come back. The Togruta girl released a few withered sobs as her eyes began to water. Then she wailed. The tears poured from Inari like a faucet that would close. The girl screamed, right into her friend's shoulder. All her pain, all her hurt, shrieked out. To Leth's merit, he weathered it all and hugged his arms around Inari in a protective shield. His usual awkwardness was gone. Leth was a rock, a strong foundation to anchor on. Inari poured herself into him.

Soon the Togruta girl's cries subsided, just as her throat began to sore. She clung onto Leth's tunic, continuing to pressing the went spot she made on him as he sniffed back the last of her tears. The Twi'lek boy kept a hold around her, his body warmth filling Inari with tranquility. A weight that the girl didn't know she had been hold on her chest had been lifted. The pain was still there, but Inari finally could breath. Pulling away from the boy's shoulder, she looked up at Leth. Inari didn't know if she noticed before, but Leth had a face was very pleasing to gaze at. Handsome, even. The boy held a hand under the girl's chin and brushed away moisture on her cheeks with his thumb.

"Inari...I-"

"Hey!" The two twisted their attentions to the side and blinked as Starkiller appeared a meter or so away, "Their here. We need to hide..."

"Wh-Who's here!"

"The Empire... ..."

* * *

It was annoying...hiding. The young warrior was sure that ditching their starfighter on the other side of the Twi'lek neighborhood would had thrown the Army and Guard off their trail, at least bog them down with checking the intimidate area. They hadn't followed them into the Alien Protection Zone, so the abandon craft was the only clue to their whereabouts. Starkiller had made it a point to make it look as though he and his companions had made it for the Rodian neighborhood in the next district. Apparently whoever was looking for them in this district had some brains about them. The boy heard a knock to Zhar's front door and he teased up in their hiding spot. The door swoosh open and their Twi'lek host spoke... ...

"Yes? Was there somethin' tha' you sirs needed?"

"We're conducting a search for fugitives of the state." An formal toned voice replied, a Imperial officer by the sound of him, "There are three, to confirmed as a Wookiee and young Togruta girl in her mid-teens. The last is believed to be human boy also in his mid-teens, wearing a dark cloak."

"I who think tha' trio like tha' would be _easy_ to spot in Twi'lek 'hood." Zhar paused. The youth wished he could see, but the tiny crawl-space under the floor had cut them off from the world above. It was total dark and humid...and that damn girl was clinging onto him. She had said that it was too small in the space to move anywhere else, but in contracted onto his frustrations. The gray Twi'lek broke his silence, "Do, please, come in. It is proper etiquette invite local authority figures in for refreshmen's."

"Thank you..." The sound of several pairs of heavy footsteps called above Starkiller and the Togruta girl. At least six of them had to be from Stormtrooper boots...wonderful, "Your the first Twi'lek to _willing_ let us into your residence tonight. So spare me if I'm little..._suspicious_."

"Is this true?! Such rudeness! There no such inhospitably at the homeworld. Core Twi'leks...huh..." For his part, this Zhar person seem to know how to really play it for the Imperials. Starkiller wondered if the elder Twi'lek had hid things from the Empire before, "Please! Allow me to be graced by supplying you and your men with refreshments. My wife and son prepare things down in our dinner bring them here. Or if you are more comfortable in the dinner..."

"I'm appreciative, but I will have to decline. But I do very much want your wife and son to join us. As well as anyone else who might be in your residence."

"Of course... Leth, Rasuma! Come ou' and me' with our gues' in the living space."

The shuffling of feet banged above Starkiller and the girl, as Twi'lek family crossed rooms to the apartment living space. The boy could hear PROXY moving there, too. The holodroid had the benefit of foolproof disguise. And the troopers were looking for a Wookiee, not a Rutian female Twi'lek you looked exactly like Aayla Secura. The youth didn't know if was ironic or just plain stupid to have PROXY to use the ex-Jedi's form as a camouflage, however there wasn't much of chance that the Imperials would recognize the face. Secura was long dead, by her own clone troopers when Order 66 was issued. Masquerading as deceased Force-users had worked in the past for the young warrior and PROXY, Starkiller only worried that the holodroid met ruining everything big vocalizer.

"This here is my son, Leth" The youth heard heard Zhar move across the room, no doubt to that red skin Twi'lek boy, "He isn't of my blood, bu' he is my true son. And his beautiful mother here is my wife, Rasuma. We all live happily together in our little apartment, no complains' about the Empire."

"I...see..." More foot-drops, from the officer's boots, their leather squeaked with each step as he walked over trap door above the concealed two. Starkiller could feel the Togruta start to say something - the **idiot** - and the with other case of action in their small quarters, jammed the face into his chest. She struggle awhile under his strength, panting hard out of her nose as she tried to free her mouth, but eventually stopped with muffled groan. The young warrior listen carefully to the officer as he neared PROXY's position, "So, you must be a _good_ friend of the family, yes? The Twi'lek youth's aunt perhaps??" Their was a perverted smile in the Imperial's voice. Aayla Secura was described as a amazing beauty and Starkiller had to admit that it was one of the more stunning modules for in apparences. Though, he was sure that the officer wouldn't be so keen on PROXY if he dug a little deeper, "Maybe you are the elder Twi'lek's other adopted child?"

"We had only met today." Damn it PROXY! The bastard droid was cheery as always.

"I recently hire' Aayla today" Zhar thankfully saved the situation from becoming nasty, "She came into the dinner, looking for employmen', and was able to hire her thanks to the prosperity given to us by the Empire's security."

"She living here, though?"

"No" Droid replied in the dead Jedi's voice, "I'm just visiting."

The room above the pair fall silent as the officer thumbed over the Twi'leks' story, Starkiller surmised. The Togruta girl pressed against him seemed to be trying to get closure for some reason. Fear? She had done a similar gesture last night at the senator's apartment. The boy could do without. The girl was just so **weak**! What was his master thinking thrusting this weakling on him? Wait...was she crying him?!!

_I have to remember that I __**can**__ kill her..._ Starkiller struggled to remind himself.

It was so odd to even have the girl so near to him. Any other time, the young warrior would have to be attacking someone to be this near. It was new experience, if Starkiller wanted to find some silver lining to the whole development. But this feeling he got from the Togruta girl's proxsimity couldn't be good for the boy. It was like anger and rage with all their power fueling him, it was weakling feeling caused by a weakling girl. The youth didn't have a name for it, though he was sure no Sith should be experiencing it.

"Believe we're all done here..." The Imperial officer finally relayed, "Thank you for your hospitality, citizen. I hope our visit had disrupt your day."

"It was pleasure, sirs. Playing hos' to the Empire is a _total_ pleasure for us." Zhar walked the six or so Stormtroopers and their officer back to the front door, showing the Imperials out.

As the door slide closed, the elder Twi'lek made straight for the trap-door and then the crawl-space was flooded in light. Taking only a moment to let his eyes adjust to the brightness of the room, Starkiller leapt off the girl and into the living space. The the temperate room cooled the youth's flushed skin, unusually flushed if it was just because of the Togruta girl's body warmth. Starkiller looked back to see the girl being helped out of the crawl space by the Leth boy. He was taking great care in her condition. The youth didn't like it. As much as he hated the girl, she was still his property to use. Sith don't share.

"We have to hurry! Rasuma, go pack some clothes for Inari!" The red female Twi'lek rush into the back of the apartment on Zhar's command.

"Zhar! What's wrong!" The Togruta girl and red boy both blinked to the elder Twi'lek. Starkiller raised an eyebrow at the young pair, "We convinced them. They left!"

"I wish they ha' gone..." The two still didn't catch on and it prompt the young warrior to explain in announce... ...

"Are you two that _dense_. PROXY was too suspicious not to haul in for questioning, and they didn't even search the apartment. They were scoping out the place to be _stormed_ by troopers..."

"We have little time lef' before they come" The gray Twi'lek took the girl and lead her to another part of the apartment with Leth in tow. Starkiller and his holodroid followed, "They probably have the fire-escapes covered. Lucky for you, I pu' in another."

They came to window in the other room, looking out onto a long ally. It was still mid-day out, not the best of times to try and elude the Empire on the Imperial Center, but they hadn't the choice to wait. Rasuma returned to them with a small bag and gave it to the girl, glance to her husband. The gray Twi'lek smiled to her in a hopeless grin and she went off to the other room. Pulling the window up, Zhar guided the Togruta girl out onto the metal grate platform, then pulled the Twi'lek boy and PROXY through the opening. As Starkiller hoped down onto the platform, the girl brush by him and waved for elder Twi'lek to come, but Zhar only shook his head.

"I must stay behin'. Rasuma an' I woul' only slow you down, anyway." The gray man smiled, but Leth rushed over and with deep frown... ...

"Dad, NO! It's the Empire, they don't have any love for Twi'leks!!"

"Go...keep little Nerra safe..."

"We can't leave you and Rasuma, Zhar!" The Togruta called, reaching back into the apartment and grabbing the alien's sleeve.

"We don't have time for this..." Starkiller glanced to PROXY, silently gesturing his head to the girl. Without a word, the droid wrapped his arms around the Togruta girl and lifted her aloft.

"HEY! NO!!" She screamed, but the holodroid was already moving to the small ladder leading down from the grated platform.

"Inari!!! Don't you take her!!" Leth started for PROXY and the girl, though the young warrior step in front of him and he halted.

"You can stay here or come with" Starkiller related, "but she's coming with us, no matter."

"No! Leth!!" The Togruta down from the ally, "Don't come after us!"

"I won't let you take her!!" The Twi'lek youth yelled and tried to leap around the other boy. Starkiller, however, easily caught him and slammed the red skin alien against the plateform's railing.

"Don't make me kill you!" He proclaimed, glaring down at Leth from under his hood. The Twi'lek's eye's wide in surprise, but the youth could feel that he wasn't afraid for himself, only the girl. The fool... ...

"Leth, don't get in there way" Zhar said to his son, "I sense they won't harm Inari."

"You're a Force-sensitive, old man?" Starkiller smirked to the gray Twi'lek.

"I takes more than the Force to look into a person's heart, young one." The young warrior blinked. The elder Twi'lek seemed to had taken a higher level of grammar for the first time. The boy looked to the red skin one in his grasp as he gazed off in the distance in painful expression.

"I'll go with you...for now... ..."

The young warrior nodded to the red boy's answer and let him up. As Leth and Starkiller joined the other two in the alley below, an explosion sounded from back in the apartment. Zhar had disappeared from the window as the four heard mass of footsteps rang from the apartment. The boy didn't wait any longer and pushed the other forward, screaming for them to run. Rocketing down the alley's length, the youth sensed them coming. From the window behind them, the roof tops around the alley, and the entrance ahead of them. The boy growled and pushed ahead of the group, retracting his lightsaber from his belt and igniting it's crimson blade. Suddenly eight Stormtroopers appeared at the opening at alley's, bringing their blasters to bare on the four.

Starkiller skidded to stop and brought his saber up into reverse-grip, defensive stance. The top edges of the alley filled with white polished armor as more and more troopers popped up and pointed down with dozens of blaster rifles. The Stormtroopers from the window had caught up to them by then. The four were surrounded. From the entrance, an black uniform officer walked to the front of the line of troopers, aiming a blaster pistol at Starkiller with and passionless face. That face of **that** officer, who must of been the one you questioned Zhar in the apartment.

"You are under arrest of the Imperial Navy and his Majesty's Stormtroopers" _That_ officer related, "Surrender so I can bring you to my superior." With the Togruta girl's gasp, the young warrior deactivate his lightsaber and rose his hands up into a harmless position.

"I surrender... ..."

* * *

Author Note: Are these chapters too long? Is my story somehow going against canon? Will Lucas make a sequel to Willow???

Why don't you make a review and state your opinion.


	5. Chapter 5

Note: I have something of life, so I could get it all to you in a timely manner. So here's an update, Read & Review

Disclaimer: Star Wars copyright of it's creator, George Lucas, and of Lucasfilms and Lucasarts. Until I become a magical wizard, that's not going to change.

* * *

"I surrender... ..."

Inari stood widen eyes as she gaped at the power young warrior, who could dash at impossible speeds and lift giant weights with his mind, easily give in to the officer his troopers. The uniformed Imperial approached the boy, blaster pistol drawn and pointed at Starkiller's heart. The youth held his arms above his head as criminal submitting to the authorities, not make a move as the officer closed the distance between them. Running boots sounded behind them and the girl looked to see the several Stormtroopers had chased them down the alley race up and stopped at point-blank range, priming their rifles as they bare them at the four. Leth pushed the Togruta girl behind him, away form the troopers, and faced the white helmet scowls with one of his own. It surprised Inari a little, she had never seen the Twi'lek youth act so determined before.

"I almost didn't find you" The girl twisted back to Starkiller and their captor. The Imperial officer was smirking, "but we was in luck to have an Inquisitor when we found your starfighter on the other side of the district. He sensed your _deception_ and surmised that you were trying to mislead us."

"He sounds skill full..." The boy putting his arms down, "An Inquisitor, Major Demici...?"

"Yes, sir. A very skillful one at that." The officer retracted his blaster and slipped it back into his holster. This Demici - who Starkiller seemed quite familiar with - signaled to the troopers on either side to stand down, which they did obediently, "It was fortunate that Lord Vader contacted me while I was separated from Hister. He would had found you eventually."

"Were is he now." The youth commanded. Inari blinked. Were they really just have a conversation?

"He's searching sector L-B-Seven, sir, at the northern part of the district. We're fortunate again that the Inquisitor Hister doesn't trust his Majesties Navy and Stormtroopers. He order that we check the _other_ possible location."

"Told you to take a hike, huh..." Starkiller folded his arms as a thoughtful expression across over his features, "He's still close, but it will take a while for him to figure out that you picked us up before he searched this area."

"I don't get it... " The Togruta girl related, catching the young warrior's attention as he stared at her from under his cloak's hood.

"Your not a rebel?!" The Twi'lek youth joined in as he erected a protective arm in front of Inari. Leth glared at the boy as he called over to him, "Your apart of the Empire!!"

The girl gasped as the realization struck her like lead weight. The reaction he was receiving from this Imperial officer, his dark master, his great powers while not being a Jedi. The boy was some Force-sensitive agent of the **Empire**. Inari was flabbergasted, so astonished that she lost her breath for a moment. She panted for it back, forcing inhales and exhales as she gazed at Starkiller. The youth was scowling under his cowl, the Togruta girl could see, his normal scowl for the world. His eyes were burning towards Leth and his glare, but Starkiller was the bit ashamed by the look of him. The Twi'lek couldn't hold himself back... ...

"You lied to us!!" The red skin boy gritted his teeth and shook his hand at the young warrior. A trooper moved up to the front of them and pointed his barrel at Twi'lek's temple. Leth paid it no mind, "You used us!! Used our trust of Amurth's friends! You probably killed Inari's uncle!!"

"Feh..." The boy groaned and turned away from Leth and the girl.

"My master didn't not kill the senator." PROXY related from the side, still disgusted as the died Twi'lek woman, "I can ashore you that it was done by the Coruscant Guard, commanded by an unknown faction of the Empire."

"... ..." Leth glanced to the camouflaged holodroid and glared to Starkiller's back again, "...it doesn't matter if he pulled the trigger. He's guilty."

"But my master-"

"Just stop it, PROXY." The youth quietly commanded his droid, "Let him think want he wants. We're going anyway..."

"Leth..." Inari started to say. But the red Twi'lek boy didn't listen as he pulled Inari closer to him.

"I'm not going let Inari go into Imperial custody!" The Twi'lek youth proclaimed. The Stormtrooper aiming the blaster at him step forward and reached for the Togruta, but Leth ripped his arm out and knocked the white armored soldier off balanced. The trooper stumbled and hit the ground with his rear. The next instant his fellow troopers grabbed the boy and girl, pulling them as two forced Leth down to his knees and yanked his wrists into restraints behind his back, "LET GO OF ME! IMPERIAL SCUM!!"

" 'Show you your place!" One Stormtrooper drew back his rifle struck it's butt between the red skin boy's shoulders, knocking his face down against the pavement. Inari gasped and pulled out of the grip of trooper holding her, rushing over to Leth.

"Leth, please!" The Togruta girl felt the tears running her cheeks as she pleaded, "Don't give them a excuse to hurt you!! Please just stop!"

"Inari..." Leth looked up into the girl's eyes, his face nothing more than dirty after hitting the ground. Inari frowned as she imagine much worst if he did submit, "I could never let anything happen to you, Inari. You mean too much to me..."

"Leth... ..." The Twi'lek boy's tone was all to serious, she was a lost for words. The Togruta girl blushed as Leth gazed up at her with his dark pools...he really was very handsome, she surmised.

"*Sigh*...leave the kid alone..." Inari blinked at the young warrior over her shoulder as he surveyed the two of them with his usual frown, "Let him go back to his family and leave them."

"Is that _wise_, Lord Stakiller?" The Imperial officer posed. The cloaked boy eyed Demici with a fiery glare.

"I wasn't asking...Major... ..."

"Yes, sir." Demici turned to the Stormtroopers around them, "You heard the young master. _Move_!!"

The troopers split apart and half of them faded away. The roof lips emptied of the white armor and the all but three of Imperial clones disappeared from the end of the alley. The two Stormtroopers who had restrained and bridled Leth helped the boy to his feet, though they kept his hands bound behind his back. They started pulling the Twi'lek down the alley, to the apartment of his parents, but Leth dug his heels in and refused to move.

"No, wait! I need a second!" The Twi'lek youth struggled, wiggling his way out of the two troopers grasp and ran back to Inari.

"I'm not going to reconsider this, kid..." Starkiller appeared like flash in front of the red boy, halting his progress, "She's coming with us-"

"I know, I know..." Leth replied quickly, "Just give me a second to talk to her. Please."

The youth narrowed his eyes at the Twi'lek, but step aside none the less. He didn't move to far off from the boy and girl. Leth step up to the Togruta girl, standing slim distance away from Inari as he looked at her. Just...looked at her, gazed at her as though waiting for the proper few lines, words, syllables to express what he wanted to say. Inari was mesmerized. She was not sure if Leth would had taken her into his arms if his arms were freed from behind his back, it seemed as he might have. There was no time anymore, no other people. Only the two excised, in the that moment.

One moment.

Leth thrust forward, evaporating the distance between them as he caught the girl's lip between his own. Inari's eyes widened as the boy puckered his folds gentle around her top lip. A second later, she found herself easing into Leth as she took his bottom lip into pucker. The Togruta closed her eyes with a moan of satisfaction. This wasn't some rosebud of kiss Inari would give casually to her father or even to her friends as joke. This was a **kiss**. It lasted a few more seconds, make the girl's mind whirl. It all seemed like a dream, set between nightmares.

"We don't have time for this, sir." Was that Demici? Inari really didn't seem to care at the moment, "Hister will be checking his block soon enough."

"Right..." The young warrior grabbed the Togruta girl's shoulder and pulled her away. Leth was about to object, however the pair of Stormtroopers took him by the arms and started to drag him away.

"Inari!" The Twi'lek youth called back to the girl as they moved farther and farther away, "Inari! I-I _love_ you!" She stared back at Leth, agape. I seemed unbelievable and wonderful at the seem time. Starkiller ruined it.

"She knows, ok."

The youth pulled Inari out of the alley, PROXY and Demici in tow. The last site the girl caught of Leth was of him wrestling to get free of the troopers and back to her. White armor chest block suddenly blocked her view as Starkiller yanked her farther and farther into an unknown future. In the Empire... ...

* * *

It was just about mid-afternoon in Coruscant's Alien Protection Zone and shipping dock in the north district of the Twi'lek neighborhood was the site of major activity. Three dozen non-descript men in black coveralls combed a lower platform filled with shipping containers, so large that a family of Wookiees would have found the inside of one roomy. It was perfect place to hideout, Hister knew, and a hellish place to conduct a search. His Intelligence personnel were outfitted with best scanning equipment that be carried by hand and power PEP pistols or Pulsed Energy Projectile pistols - an extreme version of a stun weapon, sometimes even able to kill it's target - but a technological advantage was meaningless when hunting a Force-user. Especially on align with the Dark Side. The Inquisitor knew the payoff to capturing such an individual.

The Emperor would be the most appreciative of taking in such a Force-sensitive, no doubt try to place him somewhere into the Imperial structure and hierarchy. It's what Sith do, Hister surmised, take in followers to do their dirty work. After a thousand years of only two Sith, Palpatine was planning on expanding the Dark Sider numbers, though the Dark Jedi didn't know when he would make their galaxy spanning Empire into a true **Sith Empire**. As Hister watch the men under him work, high up atop one of platform's derricks, he wonder how many other Jedi joined his Majesty's services and embraced the darker half of the Force. In the end, he was faced with the decision between becoming one the Emperor's pawns or become One with Force. He choose and Hister was committed to the path the Sith Master set him on, whatever the conclusion.

"Lord Inquisitor..." The Dark Jedi turned to the man who addressed him. His his brown uniform and E-11 blaster rifle were standard issue for Imperial Intel officers...and strangely enough, so was his bushy mustache, "Sir, Major Demici reported in. No luck in the residential and entertainment sectors, so he's moving into the industrial sectors in our district. The major thinks he can flush the assailant our why and tells us to get ready."

"An logical tactic...if a little on the naive and predictable." Hister tighten the fit one his gloves, pulling back on it's hem, "Contact him. Tell him that I like a personal report on his finds."

"The major has said that he'll be occupied, stating that he has already left the sector."

"Oh...?"

"Yes, sir. Saying that Darth Vader was returning short to the Imperial Center."

"Vader...hmm, yes..." The Inquisitor closed his eyes and focused his senses through the Force. The undeniable signature came to him that could only be the Sith Lord, probably only now coming into the atmosphere, "I can sense Force tell me of his arriving even now. We can trust the major."

"If you...say so...Lord Inquisitor... ..." Hister eyed the Intel officer with a cocked brow. The Dark Jedi could sense his lack of belief when mentioning the Force, either from Imperial propaganda or true atheism. Perhaps the Palpatine would have his Sith Empire after all. The officer continued, "Shall I alert the men to the Stormtroopers advance?"

"Yes...yes...if it makes you feel useful..."

The Intel officer scowled back at the Inquisitor, but remained silent and walked off to inform the Intelligence personnel below. Hister rolled back to look over the platform and the containers, leaning against railing. A light wind brushed past him and settled into a kneel at his right, dressed in dark clothing and hood that left little skin to see. The Dark Jedi did not need to look, he knew his disciple Force signature anywhere, though she seemed to have learned to hid it better now.

"You heard, correct." Hister needn't ask, she was always round him, staying in the shadows, ready to fulfill his wishes.

"Yes, Master..." She said in reply, pulling back her cowl to reveal a torrent of blond hair. The Inquisitor stared at her through the corn of his eye. It had been a while since he had taken a look her. She could not hide her presences full from him in the Force, but by site Hister would be luck to get a glance of shadow as his disciple prowled about him. She looked...15 perhaps? How children grow like weeds.

"The Dark Sider boy has left the Invisec and gone to this master."

"He left with the Starfighter Corps major" The Dark Jedi smiled at the girl. She had caught on quickly and picked apart information with the eye of an Inquisitor. Had only Intelligence officers been half as bright, the Jedi would be extinct by now, "So the boy's master is in Navy?"

"Vader...of course..." The Dark Sider girl gasped softly, though kept her eyes lowered to the ground.

"This could be the chance to drive a wedge between the two Sith Master and Apprentice, Master. Like you have wanted..."

"Yes. This disciple of Vader's is obviously one of secret. I have never sensed his Force signature before and the Emperor had not approved to train another apprentice, yet. The boy is...apocrypha. Vader's little _sin_."

"Shall you go to the Emperor now?"

"No..." The Inquisitor turned fully turned to the girl, prompting her to look up at him, "I want his **head**. Go and kill him and all those with him. I will bring this apocrypha apprentice's corpse to his Majesty's Throne and us that as my proof to the Emperor."

"Yes, Master..."

The girl replaced her hood and leapt from the derrick, disappearing into the night. Hister watched his disciple fade into the night, vanishing back into the shadows the moment she vaulted away. The Dark Jedi had wanted the good Major Demici to try to and tackle the boy, make the Vader show his hand before he went after him, perhaps get the Imperial pilot killed in process. No such luck...though what was luck but a delusion. Instead he would have his disciple head-off against the Sith's. It seemed all too dramatic not to attribute to the will of the Force. How annoying it was... ...

* * *

Lehon was a tropic oceanic world dotted by numerous clusters of islands and archipelagos, but that didn't mean that all the tiny patches of land were the tropical resort setting one would see on holonet advertisements. Many were the black, jagged tops of underwater volcanoes that popped from the ocean's depths in hellish display of fire and magma. Drakka never liked visiting the islands. Walking across their surface were close to stepping onto brittle glass, crunching apart under toe into a thousand little sharp pieces. The cooled lava flows made large divots and rises, leaving a traveler quite vulnerable to trips and falls, leading to a face full of volcanic glass.

Smugglers loved the black glassy islands, at least those large enough to land their ships on. Giving Lehon's annoy wildlife - their words, not Drakka's - a nice out of the way place like the volcano peeks were prime spot for keeping layover cargo and private stocks of treasures. You couldn't get rancor insurance for illegal spice shipments, which one could surprisingly get for number of other things. For a smugglers the islands were perfect of their operations on Lehon, and for the young Padawan they were perfect for securing transport off of dark planet and away from Vader... ...

Every time Drakka closed her eyes she could see her master's smiling bloodied face, the Sith Lord looming behind him with is crimson saber held loft. The thought of facing Vader agai-... ...she dare not even thing it. But every fiber of Zarbrak girl's being screamed to chase after the dark warrior and slice him to rips with her blade. Rip his spine out with her bare hands! Break his mask open with a rock and smash his face into a **bloody smear**!! Drakka's heart ached from Master Fel'Kona's death and the only Vader's tortured last seconds would heal her! Maybe... ... No. They couldn't fix anything. The Padawan knew that revenge for whatever reason didn't solve anything, never healed anyone. A Jedi never sought vengeance, only serenity.

Drakka desired for vengeance, though, like her lungs desired for breath.

As the girl crunch over the surface of the black volcanic island, she surmised that darkness had final settled into her. The Dark Side that saturated the planet had broken the dams in Drakka's mind and flooded her with rage...blood thirst...hate. It ate her, burning her skin. The Padawan needed to leave Lehon before she lost herself even more. The Zarbrak girl wondered if things would had been different if her master had died on another planet and not on the Dark Side stain that Lehon was. Perhaps the anger would had been less, but she knew the pain would had changed. Even if it had been in the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, the hurt would had never had being different. Master Fel'Kona was _gone_. Suddenly a tower of hot water vapor shot up from the glassy geography a few meters away, knocking Drakka's attentions back to reality. Steam geysers were common enough for the volcanic islands, another ban for the Zarbrak and the smugglers as well. As the warm water a fell down from the torrent, soaking the immediate area, a voice rang from over the next hill.... ...

"Damn it! Another kriffing geyser!!" It sounded like a man, one that Drakka knew as one 'Rubin'. As the girl dash up the hill, the site of the smuggler's beat up transport freighter. Some would had called it a relic of the Old Republic...she called it a wreck. Rubin continued to curse, "Bastard island, of a bastard planet!! Your probably going to erupt as soon as I hit vacuum! Damn volcano peeks! Damn **volcanoes**!!"

As the Padawan reached the crest, Rubin became visible. He was a grizzled male Cerean with lofty cranium that put the man top above two meters. Around thirty or so with grimy brown hair, Rubin had fought in the Clone Wars, though for which side Drakka's master had never said. With is very off white tunic - it was almost brown - and sloppily repaired pants, it was obvious that the Cerean hadn't been successful in his military career. His bid for the big time now was smuggling. As he rushed about a pile of flimsi packages, trying to wipe the moister from their surface, Rubin caught site of the Zarbrak girl atop the hill.

"Drakka?" The smuggler called, then stood and waved to her with a grin, "Hey hey! Good to see you!"

"Rubin..." The girl nodded and carefully made her away down the black lumpy hill and to the man. She did not know Rubin very well, but what contact they had had before was pleasant and friendly. As Drakka neared the packets, she wondered what the Cerean spacer was trying to truck across the cosmos.

"By the Force, it's been a while..." Rubin beamed down at the Zarbrak girl, hands on his hips as he surveyed the young Padawan, "Thirteen months? No, fifteen! I think you're horns grew a little...that's good for Zarbrak kids, right?"

"Tactful as always, Rubin... ..."

"Is everything ok, Drakka?" The Cerean straighten up and cocked any eyebrow at the girl, "Drakka...where's Fel'Kona...?"

The Zarbrak glanced to the ground and bit her lip. Her master was dead, executed by a Sith monster, and she needed transportation from Lehon. Simple enough to explain in her head, but to put breath to words and saying it aloud seemed impossible. As Drakka recollected herself, she took in with glum realization that this was her life now. Saying that Master Fel'Kona was dead and that she needed to run from the Empire. Why would the Force have this happen to to the girl? Drakka remembered her master saying some to that subject that would apply: _The Force isn't the solution. It doesn't answer prayers, punish evil, seek approval, or demand obedience. The Force just __**is**__, nothing more._ In all her darkness, recalling Master Fel'Kona's voice uttering his lesson brought the girl a calming center that she had not felt since his murder. The young Padawan looked up at Rubin.

"Master Fel'Kona's gone."

"Wha'?!! No..." The Cerean smuggler was visually dumbfounded, reaching his hand up and gripping his forehead, "I saw the Star Destroyer in orbit, but I didn't know. How could I have known! But how is it possible?! Fel'Kona, a _Jedi Master_! I would never have thought that Empire could slot him."

"He wasn't _slot_!" Drakka glared at the man as she snapped, "My master was **murder**...by the Emperor's beast, Darth Vader."

"Darth Vader!!" The smuggler's eyes widened as he bent down, grabbing a few packets, and throw two to the young Padawan. Drakka caught them against her chest, blinking at the Cerean as he raced over to old starship's opened hatch. Dumping the flimsi packets into the transport and rushed back to the pile, "Well don't just stand there! I imagine you want get off his watery rocket as much as I do, but ain't losing my profits that easily."

"Right..." The Zarbrak girl gathered up a few more of Rubin's packets and dashed over to the ship, then rocketed back to pick up some more. Their must have been over eight dozen of the flimsi wrapped packets, but with the Cerean smuggler and herself Drakka was sure that they would be able to onto the ship in no time. As the girl took another arm full of packets, she notice they had a certain foam like squish under the flimsi. Walking past Rubin half between the ship and the pile, she asked to what he was so keen on dragging with them.

"Oh, this stuff? The goldmine I've been after for _years_." The Cerean man reached for one the packets in Drakka's arms and ripped bit of the brown flimsi away, revealing a orange mass of moss.

"...just moss...?" Her skepticism was as plain as a dead horse.

"Not _just _moss. ** Forfra** moss in mandarin orange."

"AHHH!! What's that smell!" Drakka covered her nose with a free hand and struggled not to drop the packets. Her eyes had started from the pungent stench the moss gave out, "It's like a dead Hutt that was a Krayt Dragon throw-up!"

"It's the moss, of course. Forfra moss is reputed to be one of the most foul scents in the galaxy."

"How's this a _goldmine_?! Do they use this to drive away rancors on Dathomir or something?"

"Funny, but no..." Rubin gabbed a couple of the girl's packets and throw them onto the ship and went back to the pile. As Drakka off loaded the last of her bundle, the Cerean smuggler explained, "Forfra moss is rare, only growing in the right contains on a few planets. That's way moss painters love the stuff, it gives their art that _extra edge_, or whatever. All I really care is that they pay a pretty credit for the stinking stuff." The man dumped six more packets into the hatched and stopped to whip his nostrals, "It's a bitch to move it though. Not only does it smell, but you can't show it too much sun...or let it get too wet. Too much water makes it lose that perfect orange the artist want from the poodoo. The sunlight just plain kills it."

"And you took it to Lehon. This has to be the wettest and sunest place in four sectors!!"

"Baggers can be choosers, Drakka." The two dropped the last of flimsi packages onto the ships deck and stepped inside the hatch themselves. As the hatch hissed, Rubin climbed up a ladder to the cockpit on the second level, the girl followed, "Lehon is also the only planet in four sectors without a Imperial presence...at least it use to be... ..."

"Why are you afraid of Vader, Rubin? Your not a Jedi."

"Ha! I'm afraid of any Imperial I can't bribe. Darth Vader probably split me in two if I offered him money in any amount."

Taking a seat at the helm controls, the smuggler started punching in commands with a wave of his hands. Drakka took the seat next to him and watched out the huge viewport as rusty transport pulled up to the sky and headed for space. The girl hadn't a clue what was going happen next, if she was going to continue hiding or try to find another master to train her in the Force. Life was hard enough with Fel'Kona, without him only made it harder. And empty... ...

* * *

The tiny turolift stopped at the first level of the _Zulfiqar_ and Inari and the Imperial pilot, Major Demici, stepped out into the round ready room of the ship. Really it was just an empty chamber that lead to storage bays and a sleeping compartment... and a holding cell. The lift lead up to the cockpit of the vessel, an array of different controls lit blood red. The whole ship had a eerie feel to it, as though the girl was standing the belly of a monster that had eaten her and the Imperial. Demici had shown her basics for interstellar travel, saying that the navigation computer would perform most the difficult calculations for hyperspace jumps, even pilot the ship down to a planet's landing field if need be. Inari had ask why she was needed at all if the computer could do her job automatically. He bluntly replied that Starkiller might need less _automatic_ flying for the boy's daily routine, as she had experiened first-hand. The major was probably alighting to the dogfighter between the Army and her...truthfully Inari wanted to forget about that. It had scared her at how easily she too to pilot that war machine.

"Down here you'll find the cargo hold" Demici related as he lead the Togruta girl down a corridor that ran the length of the ship, "It's large enough to accommodate a speeder bike. At the moment we only have spare amount of supplies in it."

"This is a Sienar's series." The Togruta posed as they entered the cargo hold. Their were only a few crates placed away from the retracted ramp, "I recognized the schematics when I saw them on the ship's status readouts in the cockpit. A Star Courier, right?"

"In essence, yes...though more of modified one. She's one of the two Sith Infiltrator prototypes."

"_Sith_??" Inari blinked at the name, she had never heard of such thing before. Some type of animal or something?

"Ah...I wouldn't think you know about them." Demici crossed his hands behind his back and took on a sagely face. The girl remembered her teachers at school make just such a expression before a particular traumatic even in the student's life. A lecture, "Think of the Sith as the opposite of a Jedi. Powerful, upholders of the Law, and knowing the true path to peace was through dominance. They are the righteous in our Empire and the strength behind Emperor Palpatine's success. He, **himself**, is a Sith."

"My uncle said that the Jedi fought for peace and the law" The girl retorted, fists on her hips and a matter-of-fact tone in her voice, "_He_ said that they were the ones that were betrayed by Palpatine."

"And they are all dead...like your _uncle_... ..." Inari raised her arms and glared at the Imperial with tiny growl sound from the back her throat. She wanted to hit him right in the nose, though she stop herself as the major's slight smile stated that he only looking for a reason to assault the girl. The Togruta resolved to keeping from throwing blows with the trained soldier.

"Maybe I should go join PROXY out on the platform" The Togruta girl related and started back down the corridor, towards the airlock, "I don't think I can trust you, alone, in closed off starship..."

"What are you getting at, child?"

"Oh? That's right! You didn't know I was hiding under the floor when where interrogating Zhar's family. Special that blue Twi'lek woman..." She heard Demici flinched and glance over her shoulder to see the Imperial frowning, "And that woman turned out to be PROXY, too... ..."

"First of all, the holodroid is designed to trick people with it's apparence." The pilot trailed behind Inari as she continued for the exit, scowling at her grin, "If it was in the form of Saesee Tiin instead of the beautiful Aayla Secura, I wouldn't have given it a second thought. As for my thoughts of you, if I was attracted to Togrutas, I wouldn't be perverted enough to touch you, child."

"You were perverted enough to hit-on a robot!"

"If you weren't so important to young Starkiller's mission, I'd shot you." As the two exited the Sith Infiltrator, they were met with PROXY directly by the airlock of the ship. The droid had taken yet another new disgust, this one an older human male with bold had and a dark brown skin tone. Some how the trench coat PROXY had created to wear did seem to fit with look of his face. Demici beckoned the holodroid to fellow him as he walked a little out onto the platform.

"Try not to get side-tracked by PROXY's _beauty_ his time, Major!!"

The Togruta beamed as she leaned in the doorway of the airlock. The Imperial didn't turn, merely slammed his blaster pistol on his side holster. Conformation enough that he just might shot Inari if she did shut up. The girl felt safe enough, though, and stared up at the changing sky. The bright yellows of dusk were settling above, casting Coruscant into extra yolk-tones. Without thinking about it, a subconscious hand went up above her chin and touched her lips as Inari gazed at the heavens. The girl's thoughts drifted back to Leth and their last exchange with their lips. It was her first kiss, she dare surmise that it was the Twi'lek boy's too. Perhaps their last together, too, consider the Togruta girl's uncertain future with the Empire and with Starkiller boy. She still didn't know how she felt about Leth since his proclamation of love for her and now she wouldn't have the chance to spend time with him to figure it out. Just when universe seemed to be given Inari a break, this happens!!

"*Sigh*...the Force most hate me... ..."

* * *

"Your progress disappoints me..."

Starkiller bent down in his kneel as far as physically possible, submitting to his master scolding. The youth was filled with shame. Lord Vader had crossed the galaxy to see him and the boy had only brought him dishonor of saving the young warrior's worthless life. And here he was, alone with his master at the repulsorlift platform's control section, a tiny room near the center of three large landing pads. Outside the room two the pads where occupied by two crafts, one a transport speeder that brought him and others to the platform. The other was Lord Vader's personal starship, sharp and lethal looking. In their small control room, the boy's master filled the space. He had always seemed even bigger in person, even if PROXY's simulation was perfect in every detail. The Dark Side flowed from Lord Vader as his mechanical breathing echo across the walls. Starkiller focused to keep his thoughts calm in presence of his master and hoped not to receive too bad of punishment.

"Even if he was a Inquisitor, this Hister came dangerously close to discovering your existence." He's master prodded his finger down at the boy as he loomed over him, "The Inquisitorius works directly under the Emperor. If you were captured, your _entire_ reason for being would be **wasted**!"

"Master...I have no excuse... ..." Starkiller shut his lids tightly and gritted his teeth. He could stand himself. The youth gasped as a invisible hand squeezed around his neck, lifting him up to his feet and into the air, nearly touching the ceiling of the small room.

"You are weak and not worth a credit I use to feed and hide. Killing you would be better use of my time!" The boy didn't struggle against his master's Force Choke, the sting of failure was much more painful. Lord Vader suddenly released the youth and he fell into heap on the floor. The Sith Lord's black mask glared down at him coldly, "Redeem yourself, pupil. Find this rebel "Organization" that Senator Murtha talked of and _destroy_ it! The major is familiarizing the Togruta girl with the _Zulfiqar's_ systems as we speak. She and your holodroid is all the support I shall grant you. You best not fail... ..."

"I shall not, my master..."

As Lord Vader turned to leave, cape flowing around him like ocean of darkness, the young warrior swallowed back the bitterness in his mouth and looked up at his master. The Sith halted at the door, glancing over his shoulder at the boy as the door hissed open, then left without another word. Disgraced and with his pride slashed apart, Starkiller picked himself up. He would follow his master orders and defeat the Organization, killing all who were involved. Then he would reclaim his honor and the favor of his beloved Darth Vader... ...

* * *

Outside of the Togruta girl's and other's view out on the platform, the female pupil of Lord Hister was perched in the shadows of the platform. From where she was in the darkness cast by the tiny control room, she could see the Starfighter Corps major speaking to another bold man, the latter nodded a few times every once and while. That one alien girl was still by the ship, gaping at the sky as she traced her mouth. If the Dark Sider girl wanted a picture for the word _imbecile_, the Togruta seemed to fit it at the moment. The female pupil glanced to the center control for the platform next to her. She could sense Darth Vader inside, she had sensed him halfway to the site. The Sith was so powerful with Dark Side...her master had side that he had once much being stronger. It boggled the Dark Sider's mind! Only Emperor Palpatine seemed mightier, though not by much.

The door to the control room open suddenly and the lofty form of the Sith Lord stomped out onto the platform, his automated breathing sounding from his life-support. He had always seemed more imposing in person, though the Dark Sider girl had never been this close to him before. She didn't fear exposure. Her abilities succeeded any Jedi or Sith that had ever lived, being gifted with stealth oriented Force powers that not even the Emperor couldn't replicated. She could be standing right next to Vader without him sensing her, though he'd still be able to detect her visually. Her hope was for the Sith Lord to leave, then the Dark Sider could that this apprentice of Vader's and take his head.

As Darth Vader stock over to Major Demici and the bold one, a second figure quietly exited from the room. This was the pupil's target...the one she would kill as her master's wishes. He wore a dark cloak with cowl, but the hood was down and she could see his young face that was as young as her's. An interesting similarity for Lord Hister and Vader to have between, child disciples. The male pupil hid his aura well, though nothing compared to her abilities. As the boy made over to starship that sat on the platform, he was as ignorant to the Dark Sider girl's presence as all the rest were. The Sith Lord didn't pay his student more than a glance as he past, though the bold one did turn towards him and made a short bow. It was odd...the man look the type to be submissive. The Dark Sider didn't give it any more thought.

With a wave of his black cape, Vader walked heavily to the speeder transport that the boy and others had came on - that includes the female pupil as well, in secret - to the platform. The major followed, leaving bold one to case after the boy as he neared the other vessel on the platform. Repulsor engines whined and as soon as the Sith Lord and the officer entered the speeder, it's hatch shut tight and the craft sailed up into the sky. The Dark Sider girl felt herself small under her cowl as the speeder transport zoomed away. Vader was gone and the boy was **her's**! She advanced, immediately, taking a new position behind a tall glowlamb fixture several meters from the ship. Vader's apprentice was conversing with the alien girl as she scowled at him. Place her hands on her hips, the Togruta retorted... ...

"It's not my fault that we don't have any supplies! Your the one's that kidnapped _me_ for your crazy mission!!"

"Would you rather be **dead**..." The boy relied in a hush tone, "I'm sure the Coruscant Guard would have treated you as they did your uncle... ..."

"... ..." The alien girl's mood turned from frustration to gloom, wrapping her arms around herself and stared down to the ground. It had seemed that the boy had tactically said the right thing to shut her up.

"PROXY, prepare the holding cell inside." The male pupil commanded the bold one, to which he dutifully nodded and slide past the Togruta and into the airlock.

"I hope your not planning to what I think your planning..." The alien girl posed. The boy gave her a fiery glare.

"I can't trust you. You might try something that both you and I will regret..."

The Togruta frowned, though didn't reply. Twisting around, the alien girl started into the starship as the boy hesitated for moment before following her. This was the Dark Sider's chance! The female pupil didn't hold any illusions about the honor of single-combat. She'd decapitate the apprentice quick and easy, then bring his head to her master. Spring off her toe, the Dark Sider girl dash across the short distance to the male pupil in a silent run. Projecting her arm out, she brought her elongated lightsaber up for a speedy arch trans the boy's neck. She ignited one the doublesaber's blazing white blades less then two meters from the apprentice, readying for a single swift slice to end it all.

"You know what you ar-... ..."

The Togruta girl turned and her eyes widened, stopping short to what she was saying as she stared at the coming Dark Sider. The boy burst around and - in a fraction of a second the female pupil gave him - intercepting her blade with his crimson one in a reverse grip-hold. The apprentice growled her as she released a short curse under her breath. Stomping a foot onto his thigh, the Dark Sider girl springboard backwards and sumersaulted in the air, landing gentling onto the platform without a sound. Twisting her saber around in whirl, she activated the second white blade and changed into a defensive stance, perpared for the boy's attack. The apprentice choose to restrain himself, standing his ground as he scowled back at her in a Soresu position. The Dark Sider had to show it to the male pupil, evening after a surprise attack he had kept his focus and preparing for a counter-attack. Many would had paniced and charged after her as landed. The boy was young, though apparently seasoned...like her.

"Who are you?!" The boy commanded over the distance to her.

She remained silent, pulling tighter into her defense posture. Her opponent grunted and thrust at the Dark Sider in what could only be called Juyo on adrenaline. She knew that she had leapt a good fifteen meters, however the boy across it in a blink and sent a arching slice to her left. The female pupil parried with a one saber and cut downward with other, nearly chopping the boy in two as he barely back-step away. Charging again, the apprentice dropped his blade and made a upward arch at the Dark Sider girl's right leg. Though they disappeared just as he closed, sailing above his head as she flipped over the boy. He was quick enough to deflect the girl's stabbing saber, batting it away and countering. A series of backward cartwheels left the apprentice cut at nothing but the air as the female pupil rolled to the edge of the platform. The boy charged again, crossing his red blade with her pale one in some contest of strength. The Dark Sider knew she would win, but she planned on his momentum doing her a favor by making him stumble. With a roll of her heels, the muscle she had put in pushing his saber faded away and she was pivoting her torso around to slice at the boy's abdomen. For a second, she succeed in making him slip... for a second. The apprentice twisted his body, righted his stance, and veered her blade away with his lightsaber. This time the female pupil stumbled, moving further down the length downt the platform's edge before recollecting her footing.

Sliding into a defensive stance that could quick change into a Ataru aerial attack, the Dark Sider looked back at the boy. He stood where he was with a open-guard posture that looked like a Makashi posture, one arm with his saber and the other lanced out in the other direction. She doubt he could really use it as well as his Juyo techniques. More likely, he was baiting the female pupil into a attack then change styles the last minute. The Dark Sider girl rushed at him, deciding to play in to his tactic and lash out at him with the Force just before meeting him. A Force Push would serve to knock the boy off center for a good follow-up counter. Running down the platform's edge, the Dark Sider concentrated for a telekinetic thrust. Suddenly the boy rammed his up and screamed, sending out a massive Force Wave that hit the girl like ton of bricks. She felt herself being lifted off her feet and thrown off the platform into the dark depths of the Imperial Center's abyss. The Dark Sider was stun.

As she fell, the female pupil couldn't believe that the boy had instantly released such a powerful Force Wave with her sense him gathering the Force first. It was impossible to just blast one out like that without first focusing. The Dark Sider girl looked up at the platform and gasped when she did. The boy was plummet from at her, scowl on his face as he dropped down at like missile. He was either that skilled or that out of his mind! The Dark Sider shot her arms out and slowed herself down with the wind-drag and the Force. The apprentice soon caught up to her and his crimson blade jumped to life, clashing with one of her white sabers. Between the crossed lightsabers, the female pupil could see her opponents burning eyes glare at her with ever increasing intensity. She flinched and the boy too the opportunity to thrust a Force Push into her chest, knocking her down fast ahead of him. The Dark Sider girl surmised that she wouldn't winning in a free-fall fight and turned her body around to look for a place to land.

Searching the caverous gully, the girl spoted a skyway full of airspeeders and transports zooming along a few kilometers down form her. That was her best bet. Contorting her body to help redirect her drop to the skyway, she glance back up at the boy. He was following her as best he could, arms and legs spread-eagle with his saber flaring in one hand. As they neared, the pair lessened their plummet with the Force, slower and slower, until each landed onto a speeder gracefully. The Dark Sider girl fell atop a pedestrian airspeeder, prompting a scream from inside. Gazing through the windshield, she saw a woman staring wide-eye at her like a doe. The wind was savage foe, threatening her stance on the speeder and making the female pupil grab her hood from falling from falling from her face. Turned back to where the boy landed further down the skyway, she saw he had started jumping from craft to craft to caught up with her. This was still was the place for a dual - at least if she wanted to win - so the Dark Sider began traveling up skyway herself, one speeder at a time.

The cat and mouse continued, the girl felt the apprentice gaining more and more ground on her. Soon a replusor truck came into view and the Dark Sider leapt up to the wide trailer it was pulling. Landing with a dull thud, she twisted around and retreated back a forward edge. The male pupil joined her a second later, taking a offensive stance. Not want to beat around the bush, she charge him with a whirling lightsaber attack. The boy parried and countered, prompting her to sidestep and take a whirling arch a his head. He duck and rolled forward, turning on his heels as he stood and charge for the girl. The apprentice's blows seemed twice as fast as before, the female pupil was pushed to stay on the defense. Parrying another slice with a spin on her heels, the Dark Sider twisted around and sent a vicious kick into the boy's stomach. He dropped to the up to the front of the trailer, the wind stopping him from going much farther. The apprentice sprung back up to his feet in no time, not the least bit phased.

"You don't have a pray of defeating me..." The boy related quietly, though she heard it clearly, "You should at least tell me who you are before I kill you... ..."

"I am a tool of my master." She spat at him a harsh voice, but with a underlining pride of her place, "He wishes you dead and I willing follow his command."

"As do we all... ..."

The Dark Sider girl blasted a Force Push at the boy, placing some power behind it. The apprentice put up an arm you and weathered the Push with aid of the Force, his cloths ripping slightly under the weight of the telekinetic projectile passing over him. The attack over, the male pupil launched his own Force Push and girl raised both her arms to protect herself. Either from the wind's help or his superior strength, the boy's blast was much more severe then her's. The female pupil's footing slide back a step as she felt her one pant leg tear open. The Force ripped away her cowl, letting the Dark Sider's long blond hair blow back in the wind. As the wave ceased, she lowered her arms and was met with another of the boy's charges. The girl gritted her teeth and sliced her lightsaber at his abdomen. The apprentice leapt up out of the way - as though in Ataru move - and somersaulted in the air, over the edge of the trailer. The Dark Sider girl watched in amazement. Suicide? She stood her ground and let the Force be her eyes, weary of another crazy tactic. The boy was just gone, no trace. That meant that he was alive, he couldn't have died that quickly with the seemingly bottomless Coruscant to fall into.

After a few moments of focusing, the female pupil located the boy in the Force...but it made no sense. The apprentice was skilled in hiding his presence - a close rival to her - but she couldn't believe that his ablities included _projecting_ his presence else where. She step back, keeping her defenses up and sense alert. The boy's presence followed her, staying just close enough to met her doublesaber in between her hands. The surface of the trailer shook under the Dark Sider's feet, strains of her light hair flew into her face. Where was he coming from? His aura felt right next her, still, moving along with her. It still made not sense. It was like the apprentice was right next to...right **below** her!!

The thin durasteel of the trailer burst apart and the boy sailed from the hole, swinging his crimson saber. The blade hissed through the Dark Sider girl's doublesaber hilt and she fell down onto her rear. Her remaining half of her weapon raised, she stumbled back as the male pupil advanced on the girl. Saber pointed for a thrust, the boy scowled down at her with his fiery eyes. Her breaths shorten as she gaped back at him, she knew he could sense her fear if not see it. There was no hope... ...

"Your weaken and beaten..." The apprentice said, "This is your last chance to tell me who you are."

"Why does it matter?!" She dropped her lightsaber to her side, deactivating it's blade. Couldn't parry his attack if she wanted to.

"Because you are the first person I have ever really dueled with a lightsaber... ..."

The Dark Sider girl blinked, twice. It was impossible! She had fought and defeated skilled Jedi Knights, but this boy had succeeded them all without question. How could it be true that he never engaged in a full-blow dual before?? Suddenly, the sound of a hundred hooking airspeeder horns filled the skyway. The T-shaped starship from the platform knifed over and matched the repulsor truck's speed, flying just a little a head of it. The airlock at the rear of the vessel opened and a stripped-down looking droid stuck it's head out. The boy glanced up at the ship and sighed, not of frustration but one of calming effect. The female pupil watched as he relaxed his weapon and let the blade dissolve back into the hilt. Without looking back at her, the boy started to the craft, apparently no longer concerned with the Dark Sider.

"WHY?!!!!" The girl bellowed at him, rolling into a crouch. The apprentice stopped and turned back to her, taking a moment to eye her with fierce stare.

"Because I must get _stronger_...because I am the tool of my master as well. Hate me, loath me, and let it guide and fuel you for our next meeting. I desire a more difficult challenge of my training." With wind sending her flowing behind her, the Dark Sider girl glared at the boy as turned back to the vessel.

"My name is Elbe."

He didn't turn back to confirm that he had got the name, but the Dark Sider knew he heard her. With a mighty leap, the apprentice jumped from the trailer and into the airlock of the starship. The droid quickly helped him aboard and the hatch closed with hiss. Alone on the trailer, the airspeeders still hooking once and while, Elbe boiled in self-loathing. She redirected her hate onto the ship as it rocketed away, specifically the one Force-user aboard it. Soon her master's wishes faded away from her mind and she focused her thoughts on what the boy had said. Hate him and become stronger with it, use ever bit of it to **destroy** him. As the girl her sides with her hands, she shook with rage.

She would hunt and kill the apprentice for herself, no one else... ...

* * *

In the blood red-lite cockpit of the _Zulfiqar_, Inari was going over the last minute calculations for the hyperspace jump. Well...the navi computer was making the calculation, she was waiting for the point where she needed to confirm the it. Though, what she was confirming she didn't understand in the slightest. As the numbers and different equation signs flashed across the terminal screen, the Togruta girl's head whirled. She hated math. Gazing out the crimson tilted viewport, the starry void met her with the giant burning global of the local sun. It had been three years since she last traveled through space, and that had been her first time doing it. Hyperspace was the worst of it. Inari understand physics enough so that they would be while until they reached outside Coruscant's gravity-well, though a hundred years didn't seem long enough to put her fears to rest. Warping space-time and accelerating into another dimensional universe, which if something went wrong could leave them losing hundreds, _thousands_ of years in transit to the next jump point. Yeah...that's **petrifying**. Period.

_Every second I'm in hyperspace, I'll be thousands of light years further from Leth..._ Inari thought to herself, _That's the worst of part by far._

She had to admit to some feelings of her Twi'lek friend, he was at least one of her closest. The fact that he confessed his love to anyone and she was there to help by his side was crime to her. Inari didn't want to see her friends hurt in anyway possible. Starkiller's dark master was worst! And the boy, himself, for simply following along with his orders, without question... ... The girl like the idea of hating the young warrior, but could not bring herself to truly loath him. Her mind kept turning back to when he had called himself nothing more than a tool of his master, pridefully even. She felt sorry for him, he had nothing in his life. The turolift hissed open and Inari glanced over her shoulder to see the youth and PROXY exit. The boy seem a little...heavier, but none the worst after _jumping down into the depths of Coruscant_!!

"So, did you win?"

"Feh... ..." The Togruta twisted around in her chair and gave Starkiller a stern look. The boy was lean against the center holoprojector on the cockpit, staring at the far bulkhead, "Yeah, I defeated her..."

"My master decided to spare his opponent." PROXY blurted out.

"You WHAT?!!" The girl gave the youth a mean glare, "Even I'm not that stupid!! Demici told me that we can't let the Emperor know about you! And you go fight some Dark Jedi who probably works for Palpatine and let him go!! Idoit!!!"

"_She_ isn't going to tell the Emperor." Starkiller retorted, sending her a scowl.

"Well I hope _**she**_ doesn't tip the Star Destroyer at the jump-point off about us!"

"Look! I know what I'm doing, here. Your just here to fly the ship!"

"Even if I was the one doing your laundry, I don't want to die! She's going to get us **killed**!!"

As Inari finished her loud comment, her throat suddenly closed against her will. An unseen hand gripped her neck and heart, pulling her from her seat into the air. Her eyes widen at Starkiller as his gesture alighted to him being the offender. Gasping for breaths, with her hands around her throat, she tried to speak for mercy. Her voice was blocked, however, as the scowling boy crash the Force around her.

"Is this what you what?! To finish her off like _this_? It's what I'm suppose to do, _isn't it_!!" She could answer. Starkiller growled and suddenly released her, letting the Togruta drop to the flight seat with grunt before stocking over to her. Grabbing her throat with his real hand this time, the boy ignited his red saber and placed the blade a hair from her chin. He continued in a harsh whisper, "Maybe like this. Quick and clean. A lightsaber is always clean...not a drop of blood. Is _this_ what I'm suppose to do... ..."

"...*gasp*..." The girl shook her head sheepishly. His questions terrified her, his methods of explain himself even more so... yet they were sad. As powerful as he was, the young warrior was tormented by death. Inari blinked once as she felt tears well up in her eyes. How could anyone live like he did?

"Don't you dare do that..." Starkiller step back, letting the Togruta girl go. Stumbling backwards, his lightsaber deactivated and slipped from this hand and the floor with metallic _clang_. If it was possible, he looked even paler than usual as he swayed back and forth, "Don't you...ever...dare look at me...with tears and..._pity_... ..."

"Master!" The holodroid called and move to catch the boy, but it was too late. He fell, clasping onto Inari as she barely moved her hands up to catch him.

"P-PROXY! What's happening to him!" The girl cried as she heaved Starkiller up from her. The droid took his waist and pulled back far enough for Inari to stand.

"My master goes days without eating and relies on the Force to sustain him. Fighting that Dark Jedi female must have reduced the supply he relies on!" For the first time, the Togruta girl heard really concern from PROXY. After hearing him talk of her's and Starkiller's death so often, it was odd for the droid to express worry for the youth, "We should get him into bed to rest. Hopefully he will eat more when he wakes."

"How long with will he be out?" She grabbed the boy's legs and lifted them from the floor, carrying them as PROXY moved to the turolift.

"I do not know. The Force escapes my understand and it's such a matter now."

Holding the young warrior's legs as firm and as gentle a grip as she could, the Togruta rode the lift down to the ready room below. The boy that had came close to killing her a minute ago was now in her care, in her care and control. Thus was Inari Dakini's bipolar life with a murderously, caring droid and a Sith boy with anger issues. Sigh... ...

* * *

Author's Note: Soon I'll have even MORE night-classes, and even LESS time to write! Don't cry, suzanne...I'll do my best to update.

Review!


	6. Chapter 6

Note: Well, well...looks like I'm still alive. I guess I should be sorry about not updating...I'm not though. It's not like I have an excuse, I just don't think you would care if I didn't make an update. I do appreciate everyone who read and favorited the story, but I was hoping for a few more reviews. Reviews motivate me.

Disclaimer: Star Wars is under the ownership of one "George Lucas"...weird...Even weirder is that "Lucasarts" holds the rights to Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. Who would have thunk it?

* * *

Corvala was one of Shili's prominent cities - that fact, it was the planet's capitals - boasting nearly four million Togruta and thousands of other enterprising species making their way in the universe. No Coruscant by any means, but beautiful place to live and grow up, by the sea in fact. Inari loved it in Corvala. There was a spot on the beach that no one went to, surrounded on either side by jagged cliffs and a closed off by a thicket of thorny saplings with unforgiving vines. Only a most determined young Togruta girl would every venture to the beach with prospect of privacy and parental liberation in her mind. Every trek through to her beach left Inari with a more then a few scarabs on her sensitive montrals. For a human or some other races, that was like getting a cut on the _inside_ of their ears. However, an hour or two without her father breathing down girl's neck was well worth the pain. It was her sanctuary, a refuge of her own.

It made sense to be there now, laying out on the warm sand in soft white sunny dress. After so many terrible things, so many nightmares that have happened in Inari's life, to come back her beach was right. It was the most home place on the Togruta girl's homeworld. The wind was blow across her, playing with the hem of Inari's skirt. She wasn't cold, though. The sun had set, but the long hot day remained in the sand and sent heat up into girl's body. She felt perfect, not a ounce of her complaining about any little thing.

Inari found herself turning to look further down the beach to where figure was closing in on her. Leth. He was walking along the water's edge, leaving his footprints in the wet sand. The Twi'lek's white pants stood out against the dark red skin of his bare chest. The Togruta girl remembered seeing the shirtless Leth many times at the Twi'lek Cultural Center's pool, all those times they went there together to swim. This was different, though, and Inari _saw_ the boy differently. Leth wasn't just a friend in her eyes now, he was... ...an attractive friend. Whatever their relationship, the girl had to admit to the Twi'lek youth's pleasant looking toned body and handsome face. As Leth stopped in front of her he looked at Inari, his lekku swaying silently in the wind, and smiled... ...

"You look beautiful in the sand." It was the confident Leth, the one the girl had met in the alley on Coruscant. The Twi'lek reached down pulled Inari up by her hand, "I'm glad I came here with you."

"Why did you tell me you love me?"

"Because I did the moment I met you, Inari." The two started along the beach, back the way Leth came. Their orange and red fingers intertwined as the pair grasped each other's hand, the waves of the sea trickle over their feet, "You've known all the time, right? Deep down you noticed the why I looked you..."

Inari nodded quietly, recalling all the half glances that the red boy had passed her way, ones that had no particular reason behind them. The two soon came to a large boulder sitting next to the waves, smoothed by the rolling tides. Nearly pitch black, it would absorb enough of the sun's heat to cook an egg on, however after dusk the rock's surface cooled down quickly and left suitable place to relax as the night became cooler. Climbing up to it's flat apex, the pair layed out and watched the dark blues of the sky turn over to the starry black. The Togruta girl wondered if Leth was right, that she had always known that the boy was in love with her and she had just denied it from being the reality of the situation. Inari definitely liked it better then being completely clueless to the Twi'lek youth's feelings.

"So what's in our future, I wonder." Leth posed aloud, the girl turned stare at him. The red skin boy continued to gaze up at the stars as he spoke, "I didn't want you go but you left, and I didn't you go with _him_ but did anyway. It feels hard to trust you..."

"I don't want to be with _him_" That dark youth, Starkiller, her savior and must likely future murderer, "He forced me to leave."

"But you would have left, anyway, right..."

"No!" Inari took Leth's chin pulled him to face her, "If I ever felt the need to get away from Coruscant, you were one the reasons that changed my face. I don't know what my life would be like if I never had you as a friend, Leth."

"Inari... ..."

The Twi'lek youth slid his fingers up Inari's neck and to her cheek. Cupping her jaw with his hand, Leth moved in closer, pushing his chest over the Togruta's. His glaze totally focused on Inari and she found herself mesmerized by his dark pools. The girl closed her eyes, surrendering her lips to the boy's. Was it right to continue on like this with their relationship up in the air...Inari pushed the thought to the far back of her mind as the boy caught her top fold gently between his lips. He puckered them and the Togruta girl felt a shot of joy race through her body. It was as good as their previous kiss, perhaps better than the first. But it was bitterly short. Inari frowned as she felt the lips that had been pleasing her drifted away. She nearly let a protest jump out of her mouth as she opened her lids. The girl gasped as her eyes widen to the one atop of her. Leth was gone. The person that replaced him was that dark youth, her savior and probable killer, Starkiller... ...

"Don't delude yourself. Your mine now!" The young warrior's fingers tore around Inari's neck and gripped the air out of her throat, "Your mind to use...as I see fit... ..."

Inari gasped as her body flung up and her eyes ripped opening. The girl's hands shot up to her throat as she breathed in a few hard puffs of oxygen. She removed the covers from over her and scooted to the edge of the bed. The cabin was empty, with only the glow of the wall terminal casting rooming she was in crimson. Whipping a palming across her forehead, Inari found it layered in a cold sweat. With a tired sigh, the Togruta girl felt her heart finally slow to a normal beat and mind returned to a calm state.

It was a nightmare. In all sense of the word, though still just a nightmare.

The girl took another long sigh and pulled off the bed. There was no use going to bed if she was just going relive such an event again, and there wasn't any schedule to restrict her actives on a starship. In space there wasn't day or night, just time for work or leisure. Getting dressed, Inari pulled on a pair of skin-tight pants and a sleeveless tunic that a respectable showing of her collarbone. Their were the clothes of Leth's mother, who filled the duffel bag that Inari was retrieve them from. Considering that the middle-age Twi'lek mom use to be dancer, they fitted the Togruta girl pretty well. At least she had a back up in dancing if this would "being kidnapped" thing did work out... sigh... ...

"Well...I guess I'll go check on him and see what PROXY has to say today." The girl announced to the Universe to see if it had any objections. She took it's silence as a negative.

Stuffing her feet into her black slip-on shoes - plain, but comfortable and they matched almost everything! - Inari took few across the tiny cabin and to the door. The ready room was vacant when the door slid open, as usual, and the Togruta girl glided over to the other and through another door. It was in this cabin that Inari found the homicidal holodroid tending to his unconscious master, lovingly almost. Starkiller had been laying in the _Zulfiqar's_ small sickbay for three days now. PROXY said that he was meditating, but the IV drip in his arm said otherwise. What would happen to the Inari if the boy died? She wondered, glancing at the droid as he organized syringes and medicines on a tray next to Starkiller's bed. More importantly, what would PROXY do if he died?

"Oh! Princess DaKini!" The holodroid related as he noticed Inari's entry. He turned fully to her and gave an impression of smiling in the girls eyes, though his verbalizor couldn't move from it's rigid straightness, "I'm happy to say that the Master is doing much better today and will probably be up and about any time today."

"Didn't you say that yesterday...and the day before..." The Togruta walked over to the biobed. The powerful young warrior was helpless under the covers. His pale white chest suck out of the blankets, heavily scared by long thin burns. Lightsaber wounds? Some seemed fresher, rawer than the others. Inari crossed her arms in front of her looked back to PROXY, "I think you should stop calling me _princess_, by the way. I never quite like the title and we won't want to attract attention to ourselves with it."

"Mistress, then!"

"Sure... ..." For all the things PROXY was, he still had that happy-to-by-a-slave droid personality. It was creepy, yes, but the girl found it to be more annoying than anything else.

"I'm so glade that you have found the conviction to server the Master."

"Hey, who wants to get killed." She glanced back to Starkiller. _He did_. Inari thought to herself, _A merry suicide for his evil master._ Back to PROXY, the Togruta sighed and went on, "So. Any course change today or just keep drafting?"

They had been drafting in the Tramanons system since they left the Imperial Center, watch had gave Inari plenty check the _Zulfiqar's_ systems and inventory their supplies. Supplies...WHAT SUPPLIES? The damn Imperials had given them twelve crates of replacement parts, sixteen boxes of medical and administration equipment - all pretty random - and one whole medium sized box of a ration bars. Inari wasn't an expert on the Empire's long-term operations, but maybe a little extra _food_ might be helpful. At least some variety would have been appreciative. Ration bars had the lovely aroma of **EDIBLE**, and the truly enjoyable taste of **NOT-POISONOUS**. Now consider three days of a ration bar for breakfast, a ration bar for lunch, and a ration bar for dinner. Every meal washed down with a lukewarm cup of processed water, all the way from the springs of the ship's refreshers. There was a week of food left - that is, if Inari counted the emergency rations on the _Zulfiqar_ and that Starkiller didn't wake up and that she skip breakfast - they would need to get food soon enough.

"Look, PROXY" The girl frowned as she faced the droid with her hands on her hips, "we're going to need to make a pit-stop somewhere and scrounge up some supplies."

"That's for the Master to decide."

"The _Master_ is out like a rock."

"Still, Master Starkiller is the one-" A groan from the bed interrupted the holodroid and Inari turned to see the boy arching his back and gritting his teeth slightly. His lids popped open and Starkiller gave a fierce glare the Togruta girl, now awake.

"Your...awake?" The girl blinked. She hadn't thought he would really could have been on death's door, but Inari would not have suspected the youth to suddenly snap back to consciousness after days of sleep.

"Yes." He replied bluntly, "Where are we."

"Tramanons...Spumani sector..." It was all Inari could manage. She truly did not expect him to wake so soon, she almost hoped he wouldn't.

"How long." The boy commanded.

"Three standard days-_ooopp_!" The Togruta girl yelped and twisted one eighty away from Starkiller as he sat up and his blankets fall away, reveiling much more than a little skin. Inari's cheeks flared as she heard the youth drop to his bare feet onto the floor deck and the subtle squeek of the intraveinous tube being pulled out of his arm.

"I happy to see that you did not die, Master!" The girl heard PROXY move over to the boy, not daring to glance to see if he was giving him some pants, "I was afraid that you might stop functioning and that I could not fulfill my Primary Programing."

"It's nice to be alive, PROXY... "

The sickbay fell quite again and Inari was tempted to turn around to see what was situation. **That** was not on her mind, but the silence picked her interest. Slowly and carefully the girl twisted her neck, her eyes hesitating to gaze Starkiller and his possible..._reveal-ness_. She got as far as the corner of her site catching a white human skin blur before the Togruta girl shot her eyes back to the opposing wall, her orange cheeks becoming hot red-orange. What was he doing? Didn't he notice how..._exposed_ he was in front of a lady! An uncomfortable groan that begged for help jumped from Inari's throat, she couldn't take it much more.

"What's your problem?" She heard the boy ask.

"Your _kidding_, right?"

"Just get to the cockpit and head for the nearest spaceport. We need supplies..."

"How did you-" Inari catch herself from fully facing the youth, taking a pause to recollect her self, "How did you now that we needed to resupply?"

"Feh...You can't hid anything from me..." Starkiller padded past the girl and to the door. The Togruta yelped again and covered her eyes with her hands. This was truly unbearable.

"Would you PLEASE put _something_, **anything**, now!"

"Get to the cockpit." He commanded again as the hatch hissed open.

As the boy left, Inari heard him say something under his breath. Something along the lines of _weakling female_, all too predictable from him. As the door sounded shut, the girl looked at the closed hatch and frowned. She had never before met a more brash, barbarous, boy in all her life and probably never will again. Inari hadn't thought of herself as a model sentient in society, however she at least knew where the line drawn. Prance around naked in front of innocent young women seemed to cross that line. Starkiller was savage and the Togruta girl wanted to tell it to his face...though she valued her health enough so to hold her tongue. With a heavy sigh, Inari went to leave for the door as PROXY followed in tow. She surmised that she had given Starkiller enough time to move out of the conjoining ready room, saving the girl from any unpleasant discoveries.

"PROXY, do you know any inhabited systems to get supplies from?" The Togruta ask as the hatch hissed open. She thanked the Force that it was empty.

"The Jutrand system is the largest port of destination in the Spumani sector, since the Gevarno Loop intersects it along it's path." As Inari listen to the holodroid, she noticed the door to her quarters hissing close. Was he...? _Oh, that's right_ The girl remembered, _I should have known that he take the only living quarters on the ship...bastard._ As the Togruta sulked at her lasted personal space, PROXY continued, "Jutrand is the closest promising system...though I suggest we head for Oran-µ in the Oranessan system, Mistress."

"Huh? Why?" She turned and blinked at the droid, confused as to his reasoning, "Why would Oran-whatever be better for restocking provisions?"

"The Oranessan system isn't as adequate as Jutrand, just..._safer_...for us."

"Safer?"

"Yes, Mistress" The two stopped at the lift as the doors slid away and they entered, "Reports of pirate attacks on the Gervarno Loop had increased in past few months, accorden to the Imperial Central Database. Especially around the Jutrand system."

"Ha, so what." As the lift took the pair up to the cockpit, Inari snickered, "_Zulfiquar _is twice anything a pirate vessel to could handle. We could out ran them in our sleep!"

"There would be the matter of amounting Navy patrols in Jutrand to deter further attacks on trading vessels and civilians. Master Starkiller wouldn't be happy at we sailed into an Imperial security patrol without the proper papers."

"I thought we were registered." PROXY gave the Togruta girl his best impression of a sheepish smile with is frozen robot face, "I can't believe this! How does anyone expect us to do _anything_ if we can't even get best our own guys!"

As the lift stopped at the top and the doors hissed up, Inari decided to avoid Jutrand as PROXY said and head to the Oranessan system. The girl sat herself at the helm command, punching in the calculations for the system. Her terminal computed the position and trajectory of Oran-µ in relation to them in the Tramanos system. It was pretty far away, but the Togruta girl didn't like idea of meeting a Imperial naval patrol. Inari remembered from school the basics in Imperial law regarding unregistered starships in the Empire's territory - which was just about anywhere in the galaxy, as long as their was a few Star Destroyers to back the claim up - and it wasn't pretty thing to be caught. Restricting your piloting license, losing your ship, arrest and Imperial Detention. The last bit the Togruta had heard the rumors about and it was no where for a young alien girl to end up, particularly considering a xenophobia Imperial judicial system. With final calculations made, the _Zulfiqar's_ engines fired up and the Sith Infiltrator accelerated into hyperspace.

A phantasm of blues, whites, and grays glided past viewport as the ship knifed through extra-dimensional hyperspace tunnel. Inari lean her head back and gazed out the red tinted transparisteel windows on the high ceiling of cockpit. The whirl of colors continued to roll on, as it did from all around the _Zulfiqar_. There was myth the girl once heard that if someone stared into hyperspace for long enough, they would go _mad_. The thought made her flinch away from the transparisteel and turn to PROXY as he muddled with holoprojector at the middle of cockpit. He paid no mind to the hyperspace phantasm, either because of his artificial nature or the amount of times he traveled across the galaxy through it. Suddenly the lift sounded as it came up to the cockpit and the conjoin doors widen to reveal Starkiller, thankfully dressed in his usual ragged apparel.

"Status..." The youth demanded in a quiet, yet direct tone.

"We're heading for the Onranessan system to avoid Imperial naval patrols." Inari replied as the boy stride over to the her at the helm. His eyes didn't held any glare, but their fire had still remained, "They, um...Their having problems with pirates an-"

"I don't care." Starkiller cut in, looming over her too close for comfort. The girl back away in her seat, her throat throbbing as she remember their confrontation a few days ago, "How long..."

"Sometime...a half an hour, maybe."

The boy groaned, but said nothing more as he leaned on the back of Inari's chair and watched as her hands worked the helm. The Togruta girl continued to fiddle with controls, preforming simple and almost pointless tasks in hopes of boring Starkiller away. His proximity made her feel unease and her cheeks redden to that of tomatoes skin. Inari's mind wonder back to that pale blur that she saw through the corner of her eye, not so undefinable to label as some else than _a naked boy_. Even now, the youth didn't look phased by the scene at all. He seemed to have even forgotten! It she didn't know any better, the girl would have thought she conjured it all in his mind, though she could never have imagine have such a fantasy about **him**.

"Maybe you could give me a little breathing room?" The Togruta asked with a sheepish grin. Strarkiller answered with a familiar, silent scowl. Refocusing on the helm, Inari caught terminals readout, "Coming out of hyperspace..."

The boy took a firmer grip beside Inari as _Zulfiqar_ shuttered and the blue and white phantasm dissolved into a stretch of bright lines that settled into a starry black. The deck shuttered again, quite suddenly and violantly, and the void soon erupted in a clouds and flashes of light. The girl jerked her head down to the sensors display, waving her hand over few control to see exactually what they had flown into. Almost immediately as Inari looked down, the corner of her site caught something screaming past the foreward viewport, very fast.

"Starfighter attack?" Starkiller posed with a little haste, perhaps apprehension?

"Their not shooting at us." The girl related as see watched the smaller blips race towards a shape that gradually filled the screen, "There's something really _big_ out there!"

"What is it?" The youth cried as PROXY walked over to the other side of Inari.

"The smaller craft seem to be droid starfighters...a dated version." The holodroid's finger disappeared into port near to the sensors terminal, "Tactical analysis: Scarab-class, standard laser cannon armament, basic shielding. No missiles."

"The larger vessel..." Starkiller had recollected himself and he was back to his cool demeanor, "A capital ship?"

"Tactical analysis: Lucrehulk-class container vessel, minimal armament."

"What armaments?"

"It's not like their going to attack us." Inari retorted, "Their probably the prey here and are defending themselves."

"I'm not going to die because of your _assumptions_." The boy gave her a glare that stopped the Togruta from countering, "What armaments, PROXY?"

"Scanning... ...One hundred eighty point-defense lasers, ninteen assult laser cannons, and two flak batteries. All centered on the command core ship contacted to the center of the vessel."

As the _Zulfiqar_ gentle veered toward the action, Inari could finally gaze onto the massive container the droid fighters where buzzing around. It was _colossal_ titanic of ship. The Togruta girl recognized the basic Lucrehulk-class design of a arc circle, like that of the old Trade Federation freighter-battleships. However this vessel was easily double size of the battleships and took on more of blockish shape at the opening of the circle, like horseshoe. The core ship rode at the top of the circle's crest, looking like the head of turtle looking back over it's shell to its tale. The droid fighters were mere insects to the Lucrehulk, but their small size were an advantage in this fight. They swooped in quickly, avoiding the arcing anti-air - most of the time. Inari saw a few fireballs here and there - and shot a number of punishing lasers before they nosed up and zoomed away.

"Two Scarab-classes are heading this way." The holodroid stated calmly. The Togruta girl blinked out the viewport, saw nothing but black, and then remembered to check her sensor screen. Like PROXY had said, a pair of blips was closing in on them.

"Ok, what kind of weapons do we got..." Inari grabbed the control yoke and designated the navi computer. Almost immediately, a small arch popped up in front of her view out the red transparisteel and created a HUD, Heads-Up-Display. The two droid fighters were already targeted on the HUD and both fleshed with a solid tone, indicating that she had a weapons lock, "Uuuummm...what weapons...?" The Togruta stared down at the yoke, finding it less then labeled but the weapon triggers on the inside were easy enough to discern. She pulled both simultaneously and two bright blue beams speeded out of somewhere on the _Zulfiqar_ and into the pair of fighters. They evaporated in fire and smoke as fast as the beams hit them, "What? Weren't they shielded?"

"Solar ionization cannons..." Starkiller answered, "They have the power of a tiny star. Nothing less than lightsaber can deflect them."

"Alright then..."

Inari throttle the _Zulfiqar_ forward and lined up behind three more fighters. The HUD targeted them and the three droids erupted into large fireballs as series of simultaneous beams sliced through their shields. The Togruta girl smiled. Sometimes it's fun to shot fish in a barrel, considering how the universe had treating her lately. The fish soon started biting back as the ship shuttered and alert alarms rang. A group of four droid starfighters had pulled in on their six o'clock with their blasters flaring. The Sith Infiltrator rolled inverted and made a split-S, swooping down on knocked out two more fighters as it dived down to Lucrehulk's hull.

Leveling out hundred meters above the surface - very, _very_ close to the vessel - Inari hit throttle and sliced across the length of the massive star cruiser as a rain of red blaster cannon shots showered down behind their trail. PROXY jerked back and fell off of balanced as few of the fight's shots hit the _Zulfiqar's_ behind, shaking her about like leaf in the wind. The droid fighters must have leveled up behind them and were shooting wildly at their a shrinking fuselage. Even with a Infiltrator superior speed zooming out of the fighter's effective range, they could still get lucky with a few shots. The girl that was little odd for droids to take potshots, but the starfighters soon lost even that avenue as the _Zulfiqar_ knifed further and further away. However, their ship shuttered again quiet suddenly, prompting PROXY fell his rear with metallic _clang_. They had zoomed into the Lucrehulk's AA fire.

"What are you doing." Starkiller demanded. He had managed to stay on his feet beside Inari, the stubborn boy.

"Hey, I was more concerned with the fighers then the container vessel shooting us." The girl retorted as she veered away from the cannon storm of red flashes and bright clouds of flak, "I think can get the rest with getting near to the Lucrehulk's main fire now, so don't worry."

"*Sigh*...No, you don't get it..." Inari glanced at the youth and blinked at him. He merely pointed to the navi computer screen. The terminal readout confirmed the caluations for the next jump for Onranessan.

"You just want to jump away in the main of a fight? We can't leave these guy's like this!"

"I don't care about these people or the pirates, they have _nothing_ to do with us. This isn't apart of my mission."

"Well to bad! Because I'm flying the ship and I'm going helping them." The Togruta girl didn't have any grudge against pirates - especially since a few openly attack the Empire directly - but she couldn't stand the thought of abandoning someone in trouble if she could help them. It didn't feel right, and that was enough to defy her captors.

"...Feh...Fine then. Let's just end this quickly." The boy moved down to another seat to the along the cockpit's control dash. Sitting down and flipping a few switches, Starkiller had seemed to have taken command of the _Zulfiqar's_ weapon systems as series of beams launched from the nose. Inari watched on the sensor terminal as the blips on the screen quickly vanished from all around them. It appeared their little ship had more then just a few forward cannons, "Move to the southern half of the Lucrehulk, I'm detecting more fighters down their."

"Um...sure."

As she moved the _Zulfiqar_ down to the bottom of the massive cruiser, Inari glanced over to the youth as he blasted away at the droid starfighters. The girl was have a problem of guessing Starkiller's bipolar switch between fight and flight, though she surmised that he never shied away from a fight if hard pressed. He was like a primed blaster pistol, ready to unleash on anything and anyone though still restrict himself just enough soon to maintain a day to day status. Then Starkiller's master, Darth Vader, would pull his target and he would blow away whatever he was aimed at. The boy had an odd mixture of being pigheaded one minute and being compliant the next, at least with his master. Some would call that loyalty, Inari found it closer to being brainwashed. Soon, the _Zulfiqar_ had whipped away a third of the droid starfighers and the Lucrehulk's had devastated the rest. The remnant fighters started to back off, retreating to a small asteroid field. Inari and Starkiller managed a few more killers before letting them bugout of the fight.

"Alright! Yeah!" The Togruta girl screamed, throwing her fist in the air. The youth looked to her with curious cocked eyebrow, "We did it! Showed those pirates who's boss!"

"It doesn't take much to impress you..." The boy leaned back in his chair and folded his arms, placing one leg over the other atop the dash.

"Congratulations, Master, on your victory." The holodroid related happily as he pulled himself off the floor, "As well as to you, Mistress Dakini."

"_Inari_, Tinman. _Inari_..." The girl smiled back at PROXY.

"Yes, Mistress Inari, then." She continued to beam at the holodroid, despite his messed up droid etiquette. They had kicked pirate butt and that more then made up for listen to PROXY's twisted charm. Suddenly, the _Zulfiqar's_ comlink jumped to life... ...

_"Unidentified Vessel: Please respond." _It was in Basic and the speakers thick accent seemed familiar.

"I appears the larger ship you just rescued is trying to communicate with us, Master. Shall I-" PROXY started, though the boy raised his hand cease and waited as he turned his head to the com.

_"Unidentified Vessel" _A new voice said across the comlink in same accented Basic, _"This is the Neimoidian merchant cargo ship, _Free Market_. We mean you no harm, please responsed."_

"Take us out of here..." Starkiller dictated quietly to the Togrutat girl at the helm. Inari looked to the colossal arc of a starship and back to the young warrior. He didn't seem to be in the mood to negotiate and the girl had already pushed her luck enough for today.

"Moving into position for hyperspace jump..." Inari proclaimed as she steered the _Zulfiqar _away from the massive vessel and into the direct of the next concordances.

_"Unidentified Vessel: I only wish to meet with brave souls would rescued us. Perhaps pay you back for your services. We have excess of supplies aboard."_

"Wait." The youth stood straight as he gestured for Inari to stop what was so doing. He stepped over to the com next to the helm and clicked the button down, "_Free Market_, we copy you. Are you talking about a trade or what?"

_"We're more than willing to _give_ you what every you need or want. We have surplus almost everything."_

"We read you." Starkiller removed his hand from the comlink and turned to the girl at the helm, "Dock with them, do whatever their protocols say, but don't let them unto the ship. _Don't_..."

"I'm not a child..." The Togruta muttered under her before glaring at the youth, "So, what? We ignore everyone unless they have a something to offer us?"

"Yes."

Inari unleashed a irritated sigh, though said nothing more as she changed course back to the gargantuan container vessel, _Free Market_. Whoever was aboard didn't seem to have a problem with letting go with some supplies, which sound extremely unNeimoidian-like. However, that was what bothed her. Something about the pirate's attack that didn't add up. The girl had a bad feeling about this... ...

* * *

"I expect more than **you**, Lord Hister..."

Elbe was by her master's side as they stood in the middle of a great hall, massive enough to encompass a single sizable star freighter...if not two. It was only one of the many throne rooms that Emperor's gargantuan palace held, and was not even the biggest. The Dark Lord - Palpatine himself - sat before them in all his glory in his monolith formed throne, placed high above the pair atop a dais. The two red robed Royal Guard at continuous alert at the base of dais had only reached to the half of it's height before the platform jumped up another two meters. The shriveled, small form of the Emperor took up little room on the titan of a throne he sat upon, even in his flowing black robes. But Elbe wasn't so simple to judge the Sith Master by his appearance. She could feel the Dark Sider flooding from the Emperor like geyser's eruption, yet he still held his true power from them. The pupil tried not to focus on it and kept her eyes below Palpatine's level.

"Your duty is to trap threats to the Empire" The Sith Master continued scowling to Hister, "destory them when need be, **not** to sick your..._disciples_ on them."

"I thought it was merely the best option to me, M'lord." Elbe's master retorted respectable from beside her, bowing in submission...a ruse. There was very little one could hide from Palpatine with the Dark Side behind him, so admission to the female pupil's attacks on unknown Force-user was necessary. As to why, though, was up to a little manipulation on Lord Hister's part.

"You wished to show the girl's skills off, impress me and have her as more permanent addition to the Inquisitorius. Except now she has fail! And her failure is yours, Hister."

"It is unfortunate, M'lord, but true..."

The Dark Sider glanced up into the Emperor's cowl for a risky moment and caught his piecing yellow glare directed at her master. The pale and cinkle skin around the Dark Lord's mouth was in a frown, displeased with the Inquisitor's answer. The huge hall felt all the sudden even more empty as only the two dominated the chamber. Palpatine upon his dais and throne, scowling down with distaste, and Eble's master in what would initiatively looked to be a stance of obedience. However, everything about Hister screamed the defiance he hid from the Sith Master. The way his hands laid on his hips, the stillness he projected like a mountian, the thin line of his mouth that lean way from compliance solace and a liar's smirk.

"So tell me...why haven't you punished your disciple's fails yet?" Eble blinked at the Emperor's inquiry, thankfully hidden by her hood. The rest of her body did not betray the pupil's shock, but shock she was.

"I didn't feel the need to-"

"To what? To teach the girl the price of failure!" The Dark Master's bleak yellow gaze shoot fire at the Inquisitor, "If you will not take on the role of your disciple's keeper, you will take role of her substitute. Perhaps you will learn the value of **discipline** as you that the youth's punishment for her." Eble quickly took a step forward, without taking a second to think her actions through, and placed herself between her master and the Emperor high upon his throne.

"M'lord, my master isn't in fault here!" The Dark Sider speedily called across, centering all eyes onto her, "I am squarely to blame. It was I who was too weak to bring the Assailant to justice. The hardships of defeat are mine to bear and I except them without fear..."

With a quick swip across her person, Elbe produced a short dagger that she had kept secret upon herself despite the careful search by the Emperor's security. The red grabbed guards at the base of Palpatine took onto the alert, taking a hold of their Force Pikes in a defensive manner and tightening up closer to each other to form a barrier between the Dark Master and Hister's pupil. The elder Emperor didn't seem to move at all at the armed Dark Sider, merely frowned and waited to see what would happen. Elbe looked down at her left hand and too her bare fingers, quickly counting the five of them as they slightly twitched to and fore. Her focus zeroed now to the ring finger, the the fourth digit in the row. The finger seemed to pull away from her as the pupil's subconscious mind registered what she had planned. She would not hesitate, however, not before the Emperor.

Never before her own Master.

A fast first cut sent an unsettle feeling of metal against bone up through the blade, through the handle, and up into Elbe's other hand before pain bit into the finger. Then the blood flowed. The Dark Sider gripped the inside of her mouth with her teeth as went in for another slice, the crimson stream already halfway down her arm. The dagger caught between joint, the tendon and nerves weren't as taut that she could simply cut through them. No, she would have to rib them free. Elbe bit harder into her cheek until she tasted copper and pushed on the press. The blood pooled into a small puddle at her feet, the agony washed across her body. The Dark Sider looked up to see Palpatine watch her speckle attentively, his guards gazing equally so. The red robed elite watched, Elbe could sense their awe that their hidden faces no doubt expressed. The Dark Master was much more sober as he waited for her to finish. The young pupil could not see her master, but she felt her eyes on her back even more deeply then the finger tip hanging from a thread of flesh. She could not stop now. Elbe gasped in a quick breathe and pushed, cutting the tendon and letting the finger fall into the pool on the ground.

With the task done, the young girl grabbed onto the bleeding stomp and step back to the side of Master Hister. She forced her throat to stay closed, blocking any sound to escape her lips. Her sight dropped to the lone finger in the middle of puddle and Elbe doubled her focus on her throat to keep the bile from succeeding her esophagus. Suddenly a buster of sick cackle jumped the Dark Sider's attention up Palpatine atop his grand throne. A sarcastic grin crossed what little of the old man's face was visible, supplied by ancient yellowed teeth.

"Ha ha! An **excellent** display by your underling, Lord Hister!" The Emperor proclaimed with estatic glee. Elbe surmised that her exhibition had more than pleasure the Dark Master's fancies for speckles of suffer and torgure. Though, to say that it fulfilled the place of a punishment was hard to say when dealing with Palpatine. As horrifically painful the act was, it was bearly close to the feats of the Emperor's torgurors. The young pupil was count on count on other factures, however, "Yes, very impressive! Your's is a _loyal_ disciple, Hister. One worth the hassle of keeping around... "

"I confer to your dark wisdom, M'lord." The Inquisitor replied with a bow, Elbe follow suit beside him.

"I do hope you don't fail again, Lord Hister...I would hate to see your pupil waste herself away with her _devotion_."

The Dark Master almost giggled out the word. It was a joke to him, the bloodied girl. Just another resource to throw away, like any stormtrooper, Star Destroy, or planet in the Empire. Everything was for the Emperor's glory and benefit, there were no individuals, not any that stood out at least. There was no greater power in the galaxy. The Senate was a farce -it was even before the founding of the Empire- and without an heir, there wasn't any legitimate challenge to the throne. Elbe's master would change that, soon.

"You are dismissed." Palpatine said as he waved them to be gone, "Go and serve your Emperor."

"Yes, your Majesty."

With a second bow, the pair retreated out of the massive hall and to a conjoining antechamber. The Royal Guards kept the two squarely on them as they left. Elbe could hear their thoughts as they reeled from her display, she could feel their distrust as well. They suspected nothing, though. It was just the same loath all non-Inquisitors had towards their kind. The guards were simple, lowly half-Force-users that hadn't the hit of true power.

As the female disciple and her master entered the antechamber, a large durasteel door slammed down behind them and blocked the throne room from the rest of the universe. Protection or seclusion, the Dark Sider never knew, but Palpatine insisted on it. Elbe examined her self inflicted wound, whipping the blood away with a scrap of cloth from her tunic. Her own dark abilities had started to heal the injury and with the add of a some bacta, it would be fine in a day or so. That didn't help the fact that she was one digit short of ten. She would have to start practicing soon to adjust to the difference. The pupil thoughts suddenly twist to the boy, Vader's apprentice, and the moment he spared her life. She need to become more powerful, not just up to par.

"You were quick with that performance for the Emperor, Elbe..." The girl blinked up at her master, his back turned to her as he survey the antechamber's walls.

"Thank you, Master. To tell you the truth, I don't kno-" The disciple was cut short as something struck the side of her head and she fell to the floor. Elbe looked up to the Inquisitor as he held his hand aloft, as though to strike her again. He kick her instead.

"Idiot! Don't you ever dare upstage me again in front of him!" Hister voice was sour with disguise and anger, though low enough to stay out of earshot, "You do not show bravado to the Emperor! You show him fear and compliance. Even if it's faked, Palpatine doesn't pay any mind to it. The last we need is for **his** keen eyes on us."

"I am sorry, master..." The Dark Sider said softly into the black marble floor, not wanting to incur more of her teacher's wrath, "I didn't know it would do such a thing. It was for your sake... ..."

"You are still but a learner...an idiot."

Finished with his lessen, Hister twist around and exited the antechamber and left the girl to deal to herself. The young pupil climbed up onto her feet, gripping down on her hand to push the bleed back down. There was still so much for Elbe to learn, about the Empire and the Force. Her master dished out the lessens with the pain, with every bit of wisdom coupled with a bruise. It was the road to power and control, a road that few would take and succeed on. Those few, the **Sith**, will be the future of the galaxy.

The true Sith will take command of the Empire and soon.

* * *

Author's Note: If your reading this, should properly make a review of this chapter. Tell me had great a writer I am, go ahead...stroke me ego! I dare you to say definitely.

Yes, I'm hoping for more chapters soon.


	7. Chapter 7

Note: Don't you dare comment on how long its been! I've killed men for less...well ants.

Yeah, I'm sorry guys. I just could get it going. Read & Review!

Disclaimer: All rights to Star Wars belong to George Lucas, Lucasarts, and Lucasfilm. No money in my pockets to sue for people.

* * *

Starkiller slightly turned his head and focused his peripheral vision over the mess hall. Around the oddly shaped and colored craniums, he caught the familiar face, again stare over at him and his comrades. He was several tables down form them...was he a _he_? The boy couldn't tell yet with crewmen and columns in his way. He and the rest his tables occupants were perfectly visible, though, as they sat the central table of the hall. The young warrior cursed himself for not taking his cloak with him to the captain's table, he felt revealed without it. However, he was sure there wasn't going to be any terrible from their spectator..._yet_. When he walked into the _Free Market's_ dining hall, the boy hadn't sensed any thoughts of underlining scheming or plots of assassination, least of all to Starkiller and his companions. In fact, there wasn't a single drop of murderous intent amongst the entire crew, a testament to their approval of Captain Tuuk's command.

Captain Susumu Tuuk of the 5th Neimoidian Merchant Fleet, a humble near-Duros officer. Starkiller turned his attention back to the Neimoidian as he prattled away with PROXY and the girl named Inari DaKini. The Captain was recalling some of his _adventures_ during the Clone Wars, the Separatist scum. The boy's holodroid was in the thick of it, apparently accessing every Imperial record on the war to thoroughly questioned Tuuk and carefully listen to his opinions on the issues of the day. Starkiller wondered if his master built PROXY with a bit of archive-droid. The Togruta girl seemed captivated by every tale of the Captain produced, hardly distressed by the Neimoidian's former allegiances. She was probably too young to remember anything that happened during the Clones Wars, as was Starkiller, but his own master's hatred of the Seps was enough for the boy.

"I can't believe you actual at the Battle of Christophsis, Captain." Inari related to the Neimoidian with a mouth full of something from the ship's galley. She had somehow managed to scarf down eight plates of food while the young warrior was still working on his second, "Is it true that General Kenobi fought in the battle?"

"As far as I know, the Jedi Master was aboard one of the Star Destroyers we faced down in orbit." Tuuk scratched his wrinkled green chin as he gazed back into the past, "I've never met the man face to face, but I've heard that he fought along side his clone troopers against our superior droid forces."

"Most Jedi of the Old Republic normally lead their armies from the front lines, Captain Tuuk." PROXY interdicted from across the table, "Would you say that was wise of the Republic to allow such a habit?"

"If you mean, was it idiotic practice, of course. I was merely an officer on a Droid Control Ship, of course, with no real experience in column and file warfare, but it seems to me that the whole chain of command of the Republic's Grand Army could have been **wiped out** with a few luck sniper shots!"

The boy caught their spectator once more staring over at them. From what was visible of him, Starkiller could conclude that he was about his age -slightly young perhaps- and he was pretty sure he was a _he_. He was partially sitting behind one of the columns that sprung up to the ceiling all about the mess hall, and of course the young warrior was only using side glances and his peripheral vision to build up an image, but he was sure. Human or near-Human, at least, with brown skin and what he suppose were a grey set of baggy coveralls with worker's cap. Through the Force, he felt an unusual and unfamiliar sensation come from this other kid, the boy couldn't quite place it. Starkiller twisted his head to face the other boy's direction, not quite directly looking his way but the other moved his gaze to the table in front of him away. With a better view, the young warrior saw that the other boy had dark blond locks that curled out from under his cap. There was a few black splotches on his face. Starkiller quickly surmised that they were grease stains and that this other boy was apart of some maintenance team aboard the _Free_ _Market_. That didn't explain way the kid was staring over at them, however.

"You know, I don't think a Jedi has worry about being on the front lines." The Togruta girl said after swallowing a Banatha load of some kind of meat. She glance over to Starkiller, "I think I know what Jedi can handle and it seems to be that they could handle a whole **army** without getting a scratch. Right, _Deak_?"

"I wouldn't know..." Starkiller or 'Deak' replied with glare at the Togruta. Deak Sk'walker, something Inari came up with on spot after the boy insisted on discretion. Before he could change her mind, unfortunately, the girl had already used the caller in front of the Captain.

"Oh, come on, Deak." Inari leaned her elbows against the table top and rested her chin atop her meshed fingers, "You of all people should know what a Jedi can do with the Force... ..."

"My master has never encountered a Jedi, Mistress Inari." PROXY stated as though it was a fact. It was, in a sense, as Dark Force-users and Sith Lords were not quite Jedi.

"Excuse me friends rantings, Captain." The boy said to the Neimoidian as he scowled at Inari, "She's an idiot." As the Togruta stuck his tongue out at Starkiller, their benefactor nodded with a amused smile... ...

"In these days of the Empire, Jedi have become a rare sight, indeed." Captain Tuuk sighed, "As much as I resented them as the Old Republic's enforcers, I never felt that they didn't have their place in the universe."

"Feh...They launched an coup against their own government and originally were the ones that started the Clone Wars..." The young warrior scoffed out as he turned his fiery, yet cold sights to the Neimoidian.

"Yes, those are the rumors. But regardless, I never thought they deserved **extinction**."

"Do you have a problem with the Empire, then...?" Starkiller continued his intensive stare, but the Captain merely smiled back to him.

"No more then the next person, I would say." Tuuk replied pleasantly, "Besides, their one of our biggest customers in the cargo hauler business. Over half my haul is Imperial military leftover from the Clone Wars, all destine for scrap yards of Raxus Prime."

"Why are you in the Spumani sector, then, Captain?" The orange alien girl inquired with a cock head, "Raxus is on the other side of the galaxy."

"We're first bound for a Imperial impound yard on Nilash Three. A few hundred space vessels we have on board need to be delivered to the yard, along with two hundred tons of supplies for the local planet garrison."

"Wow...You do have a lot of Imperial business."

Tuuk laughed at the girl's comment. Starkiller raised an eyebrow, wondering where he found the humor in it. The thought seemed to fade away why the young warrior's peripheral vision caught the other boy stand up from where he was and start to move to the mess hall's exit. He would have to pass right by the Captain's table and thus give Starkiller a better view of this odd kid. That _different_ feeling from before was still radiating from him...the young warrior almost wanted to call it _guilty admiration_. It was hard to tell who it was directed towards as the feeling seem to periodically sink into a pit of fear that seemed more accustom to a cornered animal.

As the other boy passed by, Starkiller took noted -in stealth, without anyone the wiser of his study- of the kid's scrawny build. Perhaps he was younger then he thought, as he could see that his baggy coveralls seemed five sizes too large of the other boy. He wasn't unhealthy, simply...small. As Starkiller watch with a side glance as the other boy walked through the mess exit, the boy turned and looked directly at the young warrior. Attentive sky-blue eyes peered into hazel pools as the dark skin of his small, dirty face appeared to darken...become redder, really, as he gazed at Starkiller for a second. Then as soon as he turned back around, the boy dashed away, down the hall to some known location.

_That didn't seem quite right...but why does it seem familiar?_ The young warrior asked himself silently. As he thumbed over the encounter, he realized that he had see such an reaction before. Starkiller remembered not to long before seeing Inari's own cheeks redden as he sense her thinking about that Twi'lek fool, Leth. _Wait. That guy was thinking about __**me**__ like that?_

What was the word he picked up from the Togruta girl's mind..._beef-cake_? This didn't seem right... ...

* * *

"_Beefcake_! HA HA HA!"

The young Togruta girl barked out howling laughter that bounced the whole way across the gargantuan hanger and came back as faint echos. PROXY watched as his master silently scowled at Mistress Inari as she continued to cackle like a mad-woman. He was sure Lord Starkiller was going to slash the girl in two, as he would to the holodroid -he was easily repair from such damage- for much lesser infractions. It would have been no different for Inari, hadn't Lord Vader insisted that the young warrior maintain the girl's life functions. Even so, it was definitely a life risking affair to laugh right into one the most powerful individuals in galaxy. PROXY surmised that the Mistress hadn't put much calculation into her reactive responses.

"Are you finished...?" PROXY's master posed with a quiet, but still very lethal edge. Inari was gasping for oxygen with a wide grin, her hands holding her sides as she bent over in a breathless stupor.

"...beefcake!..." The Togruta gasped out with a smile. Lord Starkiller frown deepen as he sighed and crossed his arms in front of his chest.

"You thought it was right word to fit when thinking about about **Leth**." Inari blinked at the comment as she shot her head up to the droid's master. She seemed surprised at what he had said as her facial tone start to turn crimson around cheek areas. PROXY wonder if it was induced by an infection of some sort. He would need to investigate Togrutian physiology for any possible ailments.

"So if you can just read my mind, why can't you just read _his_?" The Mistress retorted as she straighten, pouting her lips to show her dissatisfaction.

"If you haven't noticed, we're aboard a foreign ship, with no way of telling who's an ally or an enemy, and no way of telling who's a _Force-sensitive_ without compromise _myself_..." The young warrior whispered, wishing no one else than the three of them to hear the conversation, "Besides, the Empire is sending agents to every slum corner of the galaxy looking for anything resembling a Jedi. The last thing we want is to caught the attention the **Inquisitorius**."

"Isn't it just possible that...well...you known." Lord Starkiller cocked his eyebrow at the girl. PROXY wasn't following as to what the Mistress was alighting to, either, as they both blankly stared at Inari, "Come on!" She tossed her arms into the air, slightly taken aback at the two's reaction, "Don't take this weird, but you do know that your not bad to look at. Handsome even."

"So?"

"Sooo...Some guys like looking at other guys." The Mistress' brow bunched up to silently accentuate what she was saying, "Especial _good-looking_ guys! Caught my drift."

"Will you try to be serious here!"

"I **am** serious! I have a cousin on Meremare and he had more than a few boyfriends-"

Mistress Inari had stopped herself abruptly as she looked over Lord Starkiller's shoulder and beyond. PROXY and his master quickly twisted around to find the source of the Togruta girl's silence, and it was understandable. Behind the pair stood the boy that had matched the young warrior's description to the letter. There was pause as no said anything for a minute, the two parties watched each other without a word. The other boy gave one quick, last glance towards Lord Starkiller before speaking... ...

"Hi, um...your the ones that just arrived, right?" Despite how hesitated it was, there was still an amount of life in his voice. PROXY took a moment to analyze the boy's dialect. It seemed based around Core-proper Basic with few vowels that hinted to the youth's obvious Outer Rim heritage. His voice, itself, was much softer than that of a human male of his age, though it did have that expected tone that one heard in the gender, "You all came in the nick of time during the starfigher attack, I'll say! We on the _Free Market_ would have been fried and spaced if you hadn't come and mopped the buzzards up, I would reckon."

"What did you want." The holodroid's master demanded from him. The other boy blinked at Lord Starkiller as he remain silent, flabbergasted even. PROXY decide that perhaps now was a good time to experiment with being _tactful_, as his master had taught the droid.

"If you were concerned that we were talking about you without your knowledge of it, I can ashore you we're not." The other boy smiled and covered up a laugh from escaping his mouth with his hand. PROXY looked to Lord Starkiller to see his approval as the young warrior shook his head and gripped his scalp with a face in pain. The holodroid thought that was an odd way of showing approval.

"I'm sorry. You'll have to mind Mr. Sensative and our droid, here." The Mistress related as she pushed forward to the boy. She offered him a hand and smile warmly at him, "I'm Inari, Inari DaKini!"

"Kore" The boy replied as he took the young Togruta girl's hand, "Kore Fallow. Assistant Engineer of section Three-Five, Deck Twelve, the _Free Market_."

"Quite the title." Mistress Inari said as Kore boy grin proudly. The holodroid had alright downloaded half the sentients record from the Imperial archives and was in processes of cross referencing it with the personnel files that PROXY had sliced from the _Free Market's_ databanks.

"It took long enough to get it, so I let it out to be seen to who ever doesn't know it alright!"

"This here is our droid, PROXY, his our computer wise" The Mistress turned to Lord Starkiller and went with bit of frown, "This is our _lovable_ captain, I suppose, Deak Sk'walker. Make sure to duck whenever he goes to **bit your head off**...he does it enough times..." The droid's master sent a second long side glare before focus back on Kore... ...

"Is there a reason your talking to use or are you wasting your _pleasantries_ on us..." The girl scowled and glanced at PROXY's master. The holodroid surmised from his understand of organic sentients that she had wished to scold the young Master for his rude demeanor, though she seem to lack the gull to test the wrathful boy's temper anymore.

"There is...something..." The youth turned a thoughtful gaze to the deck between his feet as the trio watched and waited for him to continue... ...

* * *

Inari took each of her steps carefully -as though she was treading through a mine field- as she trailed behind PROXY and their new friend, Kore. He was an odd boy, very scrawny and even feminine looking, but still conveying the energy of a Tusk-cat as he quickly rushed down the corridor. Ever so often, the Togruta girl caught Kore glance back at Starkiller as he took the rear of group. The young warrior had claim it was to keep a lookout and guard their flanks...whatever that meant. It wasn't like they were cross some hostile battlefront, they were guests aboard a cargo vessel. Of course, the three didn't actually have permission to traverse the lower levels as they were doing at the moment, though that didn't mean that they were going to get shot at. Starkiller's behavior had more to do with other boy position at the front and being as far away from him as possible.

The Togruta girl couldn't blame Starkiller too much so. If some other girl was giving her funny looks constantly, Inari wouldn't feel like warming up to her either. Of course, the boy never warmed up to anyone, why would Kore be any different in that regard? Starkiller, however, was down right rancorous to the other boy with emphasis on _rancor_. The young warrior was convinced that Kore was working with some enemy of Darth Vader's, trying some tactic to lower the Starkiller's defenses and leave him helpless to an attack. Inari surmise it was either that the boy was too paranoid or too ignorant to see that Kore truly did have feelings for Starkiller.

_That might change after he gets to know him_, Inari snickered silently to herself.

"All right, here it is." The scrawny boy proclaimed as they stopped in front a heavy durasteel door. With a flick of his wrist over the wall panel, Kore deactivated the door's locks and it slide apart, bearing way to a dark room, "This is one the Main Senor Array hubs, the eyes of the ship. We should find what we need here..."

The blackness of the room was disrupted by the illuminated controls and display screens that dotted the work stations that circled the cabin, alighting to the fact of the room was shaped like a cylinder. At the center was two thin pillars that encased a humming blue light that didn't seem to have anymore function than to give the room a technological atmosphere. Kore retrieved a hand-lamp from his baggy coveralls and cut a path through the darkness with it, pointing the lamp towards one of the work stations. Knowing his task, PROXY promptly walking to the station without saying a word and started pressing buttons and switching switches to access the data they sought. Inari and the others enter the room and closed the door behind them. The girl listen as the locks reengaged... ...

"Are you sure that no one else comes down here?" Inari asked the scrawny boy, unable to see more than the slight outline of his face.

"Only maintenance droids" Kore replied as he shone his lamp at the young warrior, now stand beside PROXY on the other side of the room as the two of them looked over the controls, "but with droid embargo on the Trade Federation these days, we've had to use fewer and fewer of them every year. Now only the occasional droid comes this far down."

"Hopefully, nothing breaks while we're down here."

"If we're luckily, nothing will..."

"I don't believe in _luck_." Starkiller stated flatly as he studied the holodroid's actions, rather pointlessly, "We'll leave right after we get the data, then go back to your quarters."

"M-My quarters?" The scrawny boy exclaimed, the pitch of his voice heightening dramatically. Inari blinked at him as he recollected himself, his voice reverting back to it's tone from before, "I thought it would be better to go your ship."

"I thought your trusted that _Captain_ of yours... ..."

"I do...and I hate going behind his back like this..." Kore hung his head down in shame, gritting his teeth in distaste of his own actions. The Togruta girl gripped the boy's shoulder to reassure him that he wasn't alone. He smiled at Inari and nodded, "It has to be done, though. That wasn't a _normal_ pirate raid."

"That's what you think." The young warrior retorted, sounding equally as skeptical as he was the first time Kore had told them in the hanger.

"It is true, I know it in my bones it is!" Starkiller sighed at the other boy's energize words and attitude.

"If Tuuk is as experience as he seems in his stories, I think you _could_ call him an expert. So he should know a thing or two on pirate tactics and space warfare."

"It is true that when I told Captain Tuuk, he just thought I was jumpy after my first run-in with pirates" Kore said quickly in defensive of himself, "but were the _only_ cargo vessel singled out at the jump point. There were three other haulers waiting their turning at the point, of equal size and amount of cargo. There's something _specific_ that we have that they wanted."

"Isn't it possible that the pirates could only attack one ship with their limited resources" Starkiller retorted, crossing is arms and glaring back at the scrawny boy, "and through blind luck, your ship got hit?"

"I thought you didn't _believe_ in luck?" Inari countered with her hands on her hips, triumphant smirk spanning her face.

"Feh..." was the young warrior's only reply and went on without any further challenge... ...

"Anyway, we're here know because _we _do believe you. We'll get to the bottom of this and stop help with whatever we can!"

"Interesting...I can see why no one had notice this at first..." PROXY said aloud, the others fixing their sights on the holodroid.

"What do you have PROXY?" Starkiller inquired, cocking his brow at the droid.

"Fascinating, Master! Truely fascinating!" The holodroid proclaimed as he turned to the three. A faded projection of the _Free Market_ appeared from a light on PROXY's chest, hovering a meter above the ground. They watched as tiny dots zoomed around the ship, holoimages of droid starfighers. It was a replaying of the attack, "As you can see, there wasn't anything specular about the _pirates'_ attack plan, targeting the standard starship systems as one would expect. Expect, though, these fighter's here..." The holo-_Free Market_ expanded and the view zoomed in on a dozen or so starfighters flying very close to the haul in a tight formation. Inari blinked as she recognized what the droid fighters were doing... ...

"They're scanning the ship!" She exclaimed.

"It looks like they're performing some scanning run" Starkiller watched the hologram thoughtfully, seemingly ignoring the Togruta girl's outburst, "however...wouldn't the bridge crew be alerted of any attempt to scan through the haul?"

"You are correct, Master" The droid nodded gleefully, "but in this case the starfighters used a specialized tachyon beam-echo with it's resonance field keyed onto the shield frequency of this specific class of star vessels."

"... ...Try that again, PROXY... "

"Oh...yes...um, the equipment used would not have being detected by the _Free_ _Market's_ sensors. I only discovered the this from the read-outs recordings because you ordered me to find anything _unusual_ about the attack." The holodroid deactived the image as Starkiller sighed and placed has hands onto his hips. Inari fiddled with the helm of her top as Kore tighten his grip on the hand-lamp, "Might I add, Master, that a point-to-point laser transmission was _also_ recorded being projected from the scanning fighters into deep space."

"More expensive, unique equipment that pirates don't use..."

"So it is true..." The scrawny boy related out loud, "It _wasn't_ a pirate attack..."

"But...who then?"

Starkiller ignored the Togruta girl's question and made for the door, easily finding it in the darkness and commanding the door open with the control panel. Taking a short moment to pop his head out into the hall, the young warrior glanced back to the others and waved to them to follow before stalking out of the Sensor Array hub. Inari sighed, chasing after the boy just as Kore and the holodroid did. She found Starkiller had already made it halfway down the hall -a span of 40 meters at least- by the second or so it took the girl go rush into the corridor. The boy studied the two conjoining hallways at the junction, searching for any crewmen or maintenance droids like a predator beast ready to swoop down and make the kill.

"Which way to your quarters?" The young warrior demanded from the scrawny boy as he and the girl and PROXY reached his position.

"Um...Is it really that much better to go _my_ quarters and not some other secret place on the ship? A storage closet or an abandon cargo bay...?" Kore asked sheepishly as he rubbed the back of his neck. Starkiller pointed a glare at the scrawny boy that could tear through a Star Destroyer, "R-Right! **My** quarters! This way... ...*Sigh*"

* * *

The upper decks of the _Free Market_ were far more traveled than the corridors around the Sensor Array hubs. The lethal young disciple of Darth Vader was trying his best to look small and forgettable as he walked behind the boy engineer named Kore Fallow, PROXY and Inari following closely. Starkiller felt that as though the alien and human crewman could tell he was a secret assassin, being trained to murder the Emperor. He saw Kore in exactly the same light. Was it possible that the scrawny boy's _attraction_ to him was ploy to get close and stab the young warrior in the back? The boy thought it was plausible and wished to make sure that he would stab the other youth in the back first...after everything was settled.

Kore turned a corner into another hallway just as a Givin dressed in similar grey coveralls as the scrawny boy's. For a Neimoidian owned starship, it seemed to have crew made up of every known species in the galaxy. The Trade Federation -or what was left of it- had never been much a "Equal-Opportunity Employer", so Starkiller surmised that it was the work of Tuuk and his very non-Neimoidian kindness. It sickened the boy that such compassion existed in a universe ruled by the Sith.

"Hey there, Kid!" The Givin proclaimed over to Kore, catching his attention. The other boy smiled at the alien, "What happen? Did the Cap'n drop _tourist duty_ on you? I hope he isn't still mad about you connecting the plasma linings to his 'fresher outlets!"

"No, but he did forbid me from making any _improvements_ to his quarters every again."

The Givin barked a laugh -a very weird noise when coming from a biologically air-tight alien, with no true _mouth_ to speak of- then started down another corridor, in a different direction. Kore seemed sheepish again, but still had that annoy "Up-Beat" atmosphere about him. Revolting. Pushing his disgust aside, Starkiller continued after the other boy halted in front of what the young warrior could only guess was the his quarters. Hesitating, Kore stared at the door controls as though the scrawny boy forgot how to operate them.

"**Today**...perhaps..." Starkiller said with a purposeful edge in his tone.

"... ..." The other boy didn't relent, ball up his small fists at his sides and clenching his eyes shut. The young warrior had it and made to for the door controls, "NO WAIT!"

It was too late. The door hissed open and Starkiller rush through, taking survey of the surroundings. It was simple single-person quarters with one bunk, a grey dursteel dresser, and conjoining refresher. It seemed a lot for an _assistant _engineer, but that weak Neimoidian captain probably gave his whole crew their own quarters...with chocolates and massages on weekends. There was one thing that probably made Kore's quarters special from the rest the crews'...there wasn't a floor. There were only _**clothes**_! They were EVERYWHERE, save the dresser! Starkiller thought he could be messy sometimes -an assassin doesn't need to be tidy at home base- but this took the cake. A rush of air zoomed by the boy and before he could react, it was already in the room and picking up clothing. Kore seemed frantic to get as many of his garments off the floor and into the refresher as he could.

Roll his eyes back, Starkiller let out a loud sigh. He could hardly believe anyone could get this upset by the display of their dirty laundry. Inari didn't seem embarrassed at sight of male clothing -just the volume- and the young warrior wasn't seeing anything new. Or did he? Kore was quite selective in what he gathered up from the floor, picking up every visible pair of underpants before the trio laid their eyes on them. Starkiller's trained sight, however, made it impossible to hide anything form him and he caught a glimpse every pair of tight briefs that the scrawny boy throw into the other room. Were they briefs? The young warrior would sometimes wear underpants and knew what most briefs looked like. But these briefs seemed to be most exotic, with many different colors and made from very soft-looking material.

_This Kore kid is really a strange guy_, Thought the teenage boy with a homicidal droid, a lightsaber, and mystical influenced anger-issues.

"Well, never thought I found a messier room then mine..." Inari related as she careless moved over to the bunk and took a seat on a _relatively_ clean spot. PROXY was the last in the cabin as he shut door behind him.

"This is very..._interesting_ quarters that you occupy, Assistant Engineer Fallow." The holodroid said as he gazed slowly around the room. Starkiller wondered that if the droid had facial expressions, he would see horror on PROXY face plate at the sight of the cabin's disorder, "I would bet that only the trash heaps of Raxus Prime succeed this **travesty**!"

"I know what's clean and what's not..." Kore hung his head in shame as his cheeks redden -_blushing_ as Inari's thoughts had named it- profusely, "I'm never this messy on the job, I just don't have the time to properly tidy up."

"Great. Your a pig. Now let's move on..." The young warrior felt that they had wasted enough time already and wanted to prod the starfighter attack back up to the subject line, "We've got bigger worries to think about. Like...the **next** attack... ..."

"Do you really think that there will be another attack?"

"That's what the evidence says." Starkiller replied with factual tone, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

"Yeah, but do we even know _who's_ going to attack?" The Togruta girl posed as she flicked a sock off the end of the bed, her face turning pale as though she were to become ill, "Seriously...who else, other than pirates, would want to hijack a giant cargo hauler?"

"Depends on the cargo..." The young warrior looked over to Kore as the other boy focused on the floor between his feet, his face blushing again. Starkiller gave up trying figuring out this little scrawny engineer with his bizarre mannerisms, there were more important matters to attend to and he need more information, "Hey! What exactly is being hauled on this ship?"

"Our cargo?" The scrawny boy looked up and blinked, "Let's see...nothing too important. Repossessed starships and supplies for regional Imperial bases, nothing too glamorous. Other than that, mostly scrap for Raxus Prime."

"Captain Tuuk said that the scrap was majority of what the _Free Market_ was hauling." Inari added as Starkiller held his chin in a thoughtful pose.

"What exactly is this _scrap_?"

"I-I don't know..." Kore's reply was met by a particularly nasty glare from the boy and the assistant engineer nearly yelped, "Really! I'm just an assistant to the maintenance crew! I'm not responsible for **inventory**!"

"Master, perhaps I could...?" Starkiller twisted to his holodroid as he indicated small terminal on the wall, with a access pad and monitor, "I should be able to bring up the desired information from this access point. A security keycard would still be necessary, however..."

"Would this due?" The scrawny boy produced a square strip of plastroid from another of his coverall's pockets, "It's only Level Two clearance, though. I like I said...I'm just an assistant... ..."

"It shouldn't be a problem, Assistant Engineer Fallow."

The young warrior breathed a frustrated sigh, nearly a grunt. Things were progressing to slowly for his liking and time was of the essence at the moment, so Starkiller sought to speed up the action and grab the key card for the scrawny boy. Rushing across the small room, the boy soon found new enemy in the form of the mounds of clutter spread over the floor. About a meter from reaching the assistant engineer, Starkiller felt a his boot snag on some loose piece of fabric, pulling his balance off and leaving the boy to stumble. Being the lethal dark pupil of the Lord of the Sith, though, the young warrior easily and quickly shifted his steps to reaffirm his balance and continue as though he never even tripped. A miss-placed shoe had other plans, however. Starkiller clenched his eyes shut as he fell forward, letting out the tiniest of screams -making him feel like an idiot- as his body slammed into an object, bring himself down atop of it to the cluttered floor.

The boy groaned as he laid across the object he had ran into. Whatever it was, it was soft -especial where his mouth had hit it- and warm too. A small yelp from the object where the young warrior's lips were hitting it, prompting Starkiller to tear his lids opened. Two massive blue-eyes stared widely back at Starkiller, surrounded by dark skin with few curled golden locks hovering above them. The young warrior flew back to the adjacent back wall -using his Force skills to make it quite literal- scrunching up to the durasteel surface to gain a few more millimeters between scrawny boy and him. Kore pulled himself up into a sit, touching his fingers to the one spot where Starkiller's lips had hit the scrawny boy.

"Wow..." Inari proclaimed in aw. The young warrior looked over to her as his gazed between Kore and him, a look of disbelieve painted across her orange face, "It's like...one those comics for girls... Boys..._**kissing**_!"

"I-I...I-I-I **I fell**!" Starkiller miraculously transformed from the stone cold Sith Assassin that he was into a bumbling mass of bantha poodoo, "The clothes the floor...! An-and I tripped! I tripped again and...!"

The young warrior gripped his throat with his hands. He couldn't say more than the shortest of phrases before before it clenched shut. Starkiller's face was heating up like a lightsaber on durasteel. Was he _blushing_? That didn't seem at all what a Sith should be doing! As the boy struggled to compose himself as the ruthless Force warrior, he saw that Inari had turned all her attention to where the scrawny boy sat. Looking over to Kore, himself, Starkiller found that the assistant engineer in the same potion as before, have not moved an bit. There was one main difference, though. The grey cap that had covered Kore's head had fell from it's place, letting the dark golden locks from across the assistant's shoulders, down to the coveralls waist. This time Starkiller's whole body heated up as he stared at Kore, the long hair embellishing the scrawny boy's face... boy...?

"You are...You're a...!" Starkiller pushed the words out of his throat, eyes nearly bulging out at Kore, "...a **girl**...!"

The sides of Kore's eyes started to pool with water as _she _frowned and clenched her lids shut. The boy felt a ping of shame in his gut, which nearly surprised him as much as discovering the assistant engineer's true gender. Before another word could be said, the girl dared up and into the refresher, shutting the door behind her. Inari got up and rushed over to the door, taking a second to glare at the young warrior as she passed him. She didn't really think this was Starkiller's fault, did she? The boy scowled back at Togruta as she knocked on the refresher door... ...

"Kore" Inari called out, tapping her knuckles against the metal once more, "Kore, please come out. You don't have to be afraid of us, it's ok."

There wasn't a reply from the other side of the door, however, and Inari continued her efferts to reach out to their crossdressing comrade. Starkiller groaned in tried frustration as he slide down the wall, squeezing his palm against his forehead to reduce the ache from back of his eyeballs. He silently thanked the Dark Side of the Force that hadn't kissed another male. PROXY was still fiddling when the boy glance over to the holodroid, as the scene was a trivial and unworthy of any attention. He had apparently accessed the wall terminal, sliced through any security settings, was traversing the ship's records for the whole cargo inventory. The accidental kiss hadn't even registered with PROXY. Typical reaction of a droid programmed to act to lightsaber swings, rather than organic affairs. Soon muffled sobs sounded from behind the refresher's door as the Inari cooed to other girl, her access to the refresher finally granted. It was all so pathetic. Starkiller recollected himself back up into a stance, turned his attentions to his droid and his fact-finding mission... ...

"PROXY...did you discover anything-" The young warrior started to inquire, but his voice cracked midway. He coughed -convincingly enough so- and cleared his throat for a second try, "...did you discover anything interesting?"

"Yes, Master! I have, **indeed**!" The droid twisted about to face owner, addressing Starkiller in his usual sickly sweet demeanor, "The _Free Market's_ inventory is organized very peculiarly. Much of the cargo aboard is indigenous of this sector, Master, with little more than star freighters and food stuffs. The rest is labeled as scrap. However, that is when things start to become very **strange**... ..."

"_Strange_ how?" The boy's eyebrow cocked up as he waited for PROXY to elaborate... ...

"There's a level One firewall around all files concerning scrap. And only primary security clearance can access the files...officially, at least."

"That means only the **captain** can access the files... ..."

"That's correct, Master."

The young warrior sighed and crossed his arms, letting the muffled dialog between the two girls fill the room. When they came out of the refresher, he was sure the pair wouldn't be happy to hear this about this new development. Their friendly host, Captain Susumu Tuuk, appears to have secret that he wish no one knows about. How or if this secret related to the mysterious attacks, Starkiller wasn't sure. The boy wouldn't leave any stone unturned, though, and this investigation was becoming more and more unsettling. Was the Force trying to tell Starkiller something? Was there some connection to the rebels the boy's master sent him out to purge? This Kore girl seems to have bitten off more than she could chew.

As Starkiller frowned at the new turn of events aboard the _Free Market_, his thoughts drifted back to the minute prior...to that kiss. To what little he knew of adolescent sentients, the "first kiss" ritual was of some importance to pubescent youth. Something about _romance_ and _soft_ _feelings_, nothing that a Sith should be concerned about. As the young warrior ran his tongue across his lips, his mind filled with the togruta girl's reaction. It would had been so much better if she had seen what happened. So many misunderstands that were sure to come from it, the new label as _couple_ that the boy now read in Inari's thoughts. They rang with the word as the girl comforted the blond, as though "couple" had some other meaning to it. Starkiller truly hated her and how she made him so much less like Sith.

"Master, there was something else..." PROXY related, dragging the boy from his loathsome pondering, "About the nature of the so-called _scrap_, Master... ..."

"What about it...?"

* * *

This was stupid. Worst than the time she press all the buttons on 500 Republica turolift, or the other time when she tried a cigarra she lifted from Zhar and smoked in the alley behind the restaurant. Even more idiotic than when she took her uncle's speeder out for a spin around the block. As Inari dashed after Starkiller down the _Free Market's_ corridor, every footstep measured, the young girl realized that this was most stupid thing she had ever done in her life. Looters caught on starships have been known to disappear before any authorities could pick them up. Even if Inari and the others weren't looters, the crew of the _Free Market_ might see what they were about to do that way. And as if it could getting any more dire, an attack could happen at anytime.

Life... sigh... ...

Behind her, Inari could hear Kore's keeping up with the young warrior and her. The heavy boots of the assistant engineer made an distinct ring as she ran across deck. _She_...it was going to be hard getting to use to that. The young Togruta girl was accustom to knowing someone as one gender, but then having to rethink them as another. Though if she had any doubt that Kore was true fellow member of the fairer sex, a look in her refresher left little room for it to stay. Feminine produces on the sink counter, bras hanging to dry on shower curtain rod. The girl's uncle had always hated how she hung her bras in the refresher. Something about being disruptive to his hunter's focus or something... Inari's new Twi'lek fashion interests soon fix that problem, though started another one with her insane, Togruta conservative uncle.

It still hurt to think about him... ...

PROXY was taking the rear, keeping watch for approaching crewmen and ship officers. Inari heard his servo's periodically drop to silence for a second or so, then start up to a dull roar again as the holodroid's durasteel legs ran to caught up with the rest of them. She knew that it would be long till they reached the cargo bay at the speed that Starkiller was moving, though the droid couldn't have been the least bit phased. The Togruta girl knew that PROXY would follow his youth master through the seventh gate of Naboo Chaos smiling, if his face plate could allow him. But even if the droid did make a protest, not his and Kore's and Inari's plea -especial her plea- would stop Starkiller from going to cargo bay...not after what PROXY said was _really_ in it.

"Here it is..." The boy announced as he slowed to a halt at a rather large durasteel door. His suddenly snapped to scrawny blond girl as his voice quitely demand, "Open it."

"... ..." Inari could see Kore's lip quiver as she hesitated at Starkiller's command. Was she afraid of him? Well, of course, but was it that he was blood-thristy egotist with more then just a few anger issues or the boy she had just accidentally kiss? Kore then found her throat, "...i-it isn't...It isn't a good idea!"

"We're here already." Starkiller's burning glared rose up a another hundred degrees, casting his displeasure at scrawny girl, "So just **do it**."

"I...ahh...I don't think it's wise without the captain's permission. That's all. I'm sure if asked him now with all the new evidence-"

"No. We're here, we're going in **now**... ..."

The young warrior step right up to Kore, his gaze burning down at her. He was noticeably taller -a head even- and Starkiller seem to make himself stand even higher. The blond girl backed away, the boy stayed on her and pushed her up against bulkhead. He never touched her. Starkiller was no more than a breath away from her, but his presence was completely imposing from where Inari stood, a meter away. Kore sunk down along the bulkhead, turned away from the warrior's glare as it scorched her. The Togruta girl had enough and moved to pull the boy away from the defenseless engineer. The young warrior made a mere flick of his wrist and sudden forceful thud stopped Inari where she stood. _A **Force**-ful thud alright_, the girl thought. She knew the Sith could do worst if he so please...so she cursed to herself and watched silently. A moment past -a eternaty in a second- and Kore capitulated, scurrying over to the door controls with a small yelp. PROXY then walk over to her and offered the scrawny girl a key card.

"It would best for us access the cargo bay through the ship's accordance." The droid said as Kore took her original key card from him. The Togruta girl surmised that PROXY must of picked it up after the kissing fuss.

"...I don't have the clearance..." The scrawny girl replied softly, her cheeks a flush.

"I took the liberty to enhance your clearance to Level Alpha One while you were in the thralls of emotional discourse inside your refresher. It should open any door on the _Free Market_!"

The giant durasteel door lifted to the ceiling as soon as Kore's key card swiped across the control's reader, opening into a dark void. As the four entered, overhead illumination kicked on and flooded the bay with light. A whole metropolis of crates, equipment, and deactivated droids met Inari and others' eyes. There was so much...crap. A technical term used by professional teenagers, though the Togruta girl had no other words to describe it all. That is other than _military_ and _far from **scrap**_, as PROXY described all of it from the inventory. Even Inari's civilian understand could see what was in this cargo bay wasn't burnout ruins from the war, but factory fresh death machines ready for battle.

"Look at it all..." The flabbergasted Togruta relayed as she turned a corner, finding the crates and crap kept going and going than beyond she could imagine, "How could somebody throw _all_ this away!"

"No one is..." Inari turned and blinked at the boy as he folded his arms across his chest.

"What are you saying?" Kore asked as she fixed her cap. It had almost fell off as she gazed up to massive war droids stack one upon the other, "That Captain Tuuk bought a personal army for himself?"

"Or to _sell_ to someone."

"I can't believe it!" The engineer insisted at the top of her lungs, drawing silence and stares from the rest of the group. Inari went over to the girl put her hand atop her shoulder.

"Kore, I'm sorry...but who else could have been responsible?"

"No!" The blond shook head and frown towards Starkiller, plea for another answer, "There's just no way that the captain is dealing illegal arms. Everyone on board could be arrested and sent to Imperial labor camps! Captain Tuuk would never betray us like that."

"He's a _Neimoidian_." Was the young warrior's only retort, as though it was evidence enough to put the blame on Tuuk. It was true that Neimoidians were known to be nefarious crooks that sell out anyone for some credits, but the captain did seem the type. Not by the way he treated Starkiller and her, and how the _Free Market's_ crew seem to love the man.

"Captain Tuuk is nothing like his fellow Neimoidians and I should know!" Starkiller raised eyebrow at the scrawny girl as Inari cocked her head and their holodroid companion gave Kore an analyzing stare. None of them knew how to take that statement. Her chin dropped, "After the blockade started on Christophsis...Captain Tuuk found me on the streets. My parents...died in one of the battles, so he took me with him back to Neimoidia. He treats me like his own blood and treats the crew just the same!"

The small space the four stood in the massive cargo bay filled with a deafening quite, extending up high above their heads. The Togruta girl felt horrible. She accused the other girl's adopted father of being a greedy, illegal arms-dealer. Had it been Inari and her uncle being accused, she would want to punch the pal's lights out. It was despicable and she felt despicable. Suddenly, Inari's thoughts were interrupted by an odd noise...very subtle. She looked to Starkiller and the others, but none had reacted to the sound. Had she imagine it? Kore, for one, still seemed absorbed by the unjust accusations-there it was again...that noise. What was it? A spike of adrenaline shot through her, prompting the girl's ancestral hunting senses to prickle. Inari's small, hollow montral sent tickles down her's lekku, enthrall her to look towards the ceiling. As Togruta girl began to search up towards the high reaches of the bay, she felt someone grab her from behind and pull her backwards. She gasped as Starkiller pushed her away.

"What are yo-!"

"**MOVE**!"

The young warrior hollowed over Inari as he pushed Kore in the other direction, PROXY and the boy jumping away as mass of durasteel slammed into the deck-plating where the four had just stood. The mass produced a mighty **thud** and the floor shook under the Togruta girl's feet, causing her to fall to her rump. Her senses still heightened, Inari felt something was terribly wrong. She was right, unfortunately, as no sooner than a few seconds after the mass fell...it _moved_! The mass' rusty orange surface unclasped itself into quadruped entity with three menacing glowing photoreceptors. A battle droid of ponderous size stood up to it height, bigger than the girl was tall and sporting two underslung gunmetal barrels that pointed death at the Togruta. Look to either side, Inari glanced from PROXY to Starkiller as they stood watching the metal creature stomp it's massive legs against the deck-plating.

"Well?" The Togruta girl called over to the boy as gave a second long glare to acknowledge her, "Kill the damn thing!"

"PROXY... !" The whispered commanding word was all the holodroid needed as he rushed over to Inari, grabbed her by the back of her tunic, and retreated back from the droid.

"Wait! WAIT!" The girl protested to PROXY, "Kore is still over there!"

The holodroid did not hear her, however, or at least did not acknowledge her as he continue to drag Inari another twenty meters from Starkiller and the massive droid. The poor assistant engineer was still blocked from the girl's sight. The monster of durasteel made another display, stomping and rearing up, as the young warrior stood his ground in statue-like poise. The droid hit the ground once more before it's cannons started to whine to power, red embers burning at their ends. Inari gasped and then blinked, nearly missing the scene as two giant blaster bolts ripped into the deck where Starkiller stood. The Togruta girl's heart jumped and suddenly stopped at the same time. Smoke lofted from small crater in the deck-plating as Inari looked agap to it, barely noticing PROXY pulling her up to stand on her feet. Suddenly the battle droid erupted into movement, bucking to and frow as a smaller blur hung on to it's back. Starkiller... ...

"What do you think your doing?" The Togruta girl bellowed to the young warrior from across the distance, her heart finaling pumping relief through her. She turned to PROXY, "Do something! That...that..._thing_ is going to kill him!"

"I would find that hard to believe, Mistress." The holodroid replied pleasently.

"That thing's a **monster**!"

"That 'thing', Mistress, is a LM-432 crab droid, standard model." Inari blinked as she took in PROXY's statement of fact, Starkiller still hanging to dear life atop the menacing machine.

"How could you possibly know that?"

"It was listed in the _Free Market's_ inventory! The droid is apart of the ship's cargo, along with thirty-nine others and hundred forty six AATs and seventy-eight Octuptarra combat tri-droid and twenty IG-One-Hundred... ..." The girl faded the rest of PROXY's rambling and turned back to the bucking droid and the boy on top.

"He's going to get _killed_!"

"The master is in total control of the situation, Mistress DaKini. There's no need to worry."

As soon as the holodroid spoke, Starkiller was thrown from the crab droid's back and flew a ways into a wall of crates with a metalic _whimp_ following. The mechanical beast closed onto where the boy landed, but after a several steps halted in place. The crab droid's front-half reared up as it pointed it's photoreceptors and cannons to follow something soaring high above, almost flipping onto it's back. All of sudden Starkiller appeared in front of the Togruta girl, Kore cradling in his arms! Before Inari could get out a word from her shocked face, the boy dropped to dropped the other girl to floor with a mildly disgusted look. Kore landed with a small yelp and a lot of fear in her eyes, but seemed none the worse. Inari bent down to her to check for sure.

"Keep her out of my way." A frustrated Starkiller commanded to the Togruta girl. She looked back up to him, however she found that he was already halfway back to the crab droid.

"Inari..." Looking back down to the engineer, Inari found the girl clenching herself around the arms and staring after Starkiller.

"Kore, are you alright?" The question was ignored. It was like the other girl was another world away, her image protected only with no way to contact her.

"He...he...saved... _me_?" Kore was in a stupor. The Togruta girl almost that it was shock, though there was something else to it, "I was about to be trampled and _he_ saved me... ..."

"Yeah and he always makes it sound like it's big pain to do it, too."

Kore said nothing in reply to the painfully true joke as she silently watch the boy walk to the stomping crab droid. The young engineer's cheeks took on a dark crimson as her features soften, a dreamy sigh escaping her lips. Inari's brow arched up in wonder as she watch the other girl almost swoon beside her. Swoon from Starkiller! The universe was officially_ insane_ in Inari's book now. Because the most dark, emotionally unstable, murderous, suicidal, Sith following, maniacal boy in the galaxy...

...has a fangirl.

* * *

Author's Note: I don't know what's going on. Their a 50/50 chance that this fanfic will never be updated again. But I'm having fun with it again, so that's going in it's favor.

Review!


	8. Chapter 8

Note: Does Hallmark make a card that says, "Sorry for taking months and months to post my latest Star Wars fanfiction story. Sorry" If not, those bastards! I'll get the glue and paper, make my own card...and it'll have hookers and blackjack... ...in fact, forget the Hallmark card!

Read & Review!

Disclaimer: Star Wars (specifically 'The Force Unleashed project') is part of George Lucas franchise (specifically Lucasarts) and I claim no rights to legally use the imaginative property to profit from. So yeah...

* * *

The Force surged and the youthful Sith pupil, known only as Starkiller, shifted to the left a fraction of second before a massive mechanical leg slammed into the deck. The durasteel that the young warrior had just so recently occupied ripped as easily as fabric from the crab droid's stomp, a remind of it's power. Walker droid: model LM-432, call-name _muckrackers_...an opponent the boy knew all too well through his Sith training. There was only a moment of hesitation before the droid continued it's offense, swinging it's sunk leg through the deck-plating in upper arch at Starkiller. It was in that hesitant moment the young warrior was quick to take and leapt back into the air. Whipping his arms back over his head, the young warrior's body pivoted and flipped backwards, providing momentum for extra distance. It was also in that moment that the boy's mind drifted to the start of this mess. His face scowled... ...

Was it only half a day ago now? When the young warrior's starship, _Zulfiqar_, stumbled onto an apparent scene of a pirate raid and his ever the bleeding heart pilot demand to help the merchant cargo ship. Inari DaKini was never the boy's choose of a pilot, but a Togruta princess and adopted niece of a radical senator. A senator Starkiller was ordered to kill. In a turn of events, the girl was thrust upon him -by his own master, Darth Vader, no less- and now the young warrior was in a new mess. The pirates that they had attacked the merchant vessel were never pirates in the first place. And the merchant ship itself, the _Free Market_...it had aboard a secret and illegal **droid army**!

And the day was just terrible enough for Starkiller with just kissing a cross-dressing engineer.

Landing squarely on his feet, the boy warrior pulled himself into a readied stance some five meters from the crab droid. The mechanical beast turned it's menacing glowing photoreceptor to Starkiller as it's twin blaster cannons whined with building energy and heat. Reaching out with his feelings, the boy focused through the Force to predict the blasts from the droid, what proper evasion technique -ducking, rolling, leaping away, leaping towards, side-stepping- to make, and how the monstrous robot will react to it all. Focus was the key. The Dark Side of the Force was powerful, however full of distractions. It's was feed by the anger, passions, and hate of one's Self and to fall completely to anyone of them would make one a _slave_ to the Dark Side, inside of it's _master_.

As Starkiller imposed his will on the Force, his senses caught some of the other sentients in the cargo bay. Inari was mix of fear and worry for herself and others in the vicinity, include the boy. She held another, disgusting feeling about him too..._hope_. After years of living with his unreadable holodroid, PROXY, Starkiller pined for simpler days. They seem far away now. Even so, the Togruta girl's thoughts weren't nearly as revolting as the other girl's. Kore Fallow, a crew-member of the _Free Market_ and other to blame for Starkiller's new pains, in the boy's mind that is. The female engineer in disguise had many thoughts about Starkiller that no person would dare call a Sith. Hero, savior, 'Knight in Shining Armor', _beloved_?

_Love requires compassion, and compassion leads to peace_, The young warrior rationed silently to himself as he watched the tips of the droid's cannons burn to the brightest, _But peace is the __**lie**__!_

A flash of crimson and two cannon bolts flew from the crab droid and towards the Sith pupil. Starkiller was ready. The Force turn from guide to aide as the boy leapt with fortified muscles, propelling himself high over the scene. He slice through the air at such a speed that it felt as though he was flying naked through a Kaminoan storm. At the speed he was moving, Starkiller doubt his companions could had followed him and more importantly, neither would the massive droid. The world suddenly shifted as the young warrior turned himself over in the air, bouncing his legs cargo bay's ceiling and redirected himself into a plummet towards the massive war droid at lighting speed. As the droid finally focused it's photoreceptor on falling boy, the mechanical stumbled back as Starkiller hit the durasteel beast with full power of his momentum and the Force. The youth quickly popped back up into air again, flipping away from the droid as it regained it's cyber senses. For the furry of his attack, the Sith was quick to note the little to no true damage to the mechanical. The top plates of it's armor were a little distorted, however, that was far below the kind of blow Starkiller was aiming for. The boy scowled as a disgruntled snarl appeared across his lips. Was he that _weak_?

The giant bot charged for the youth, stumping it's massive metal legs so fast that whole bay shook. As deckplates trembling underneath foot, Starkiller took in deep breath in and waited for mechanical to come closer. A stump away from the boy, the war droid bucked it's mass up to trample him. The young warrior dove into his psyche, grasping onto his rage, and brought the Dark Side to the up the surface. The air around him exploded away as a Force Wave blew the massive metal beast across the cargo bay into stack of crates with great crash. Reaching out with the Dark Side, Starkiller tosh another heavy crate at the mechanical with a yell come from his throat. The container burst on impact, causing thousands of smaller battle droid parts to riddle the durasteel beast. But despite the double blow, the massive droid speedily jumped back up onto it's legs like nothing much had happen. It was quick to focus it's dual cannons once more at the boy as their ends started to glow that menacing crimson.

This had gone on long enough.

With a flick of his wrist, a short cylinder dropped down from Starkiller's sleeve and into his right hand. Pulling into a Shien attack stance, the young warrior flipped his lightsaber into a reverse grip and it's red blade flashed behind him. The war droid continued to power it's cannons. If it had noticed the introduction of the boy's prized weapon, it made no move indicating of it. The mechanical was just a simply device of war and conflict, unfeeling and unmoved by the world around it and totally empathetic. Just a beautiful focus on death and destruction...the Sith pupil almost pitied that he had to slice it up. The blaster cannons roared and twin crimson bolts soar knifed towards the boy. Starkiller's arm moved on reflex and reflections from the Force, swatting away the blaster bolts and sending them careening into cargo bay's wall with a bang and a flash. For once, the droid actually paused as though in surprise, but the youth surmise that it simply recalculating it's battle protocols to deal with Jedi attacks and defenses. The only problem with that, though, was that Starkiller was no _Jedi_.

The young warrior launched himself forward, the Dark Side pouring energy into his muscles as the boy quickly crossed distance between him and the droid. He was met by a durasteel leg, swinging for Starkiller's head, which it nearly did as the warrior ducked underneath. The mechanical reaction time had seemed to double, twice as the danger now. The massive war droid whirled it's body and a second leg tried for the boy again. But the Dark Side was the youth's ally and with a thrust of his hand, he stopped the metal appendage mid-throw. Leaping up with a flip, Starkiller landed on top of droid's back and started to slash away at it's armored plates. They were tough, probably reinforce with cortosis. Suddenly the mechanical bucked and the boy was sent flying from the giant droid. His good senses and the Force quickly told Starkiller to extinguish his saber as he hit the floor and rolled across the deckplates. Snapping himself from the pain with a short grunt, the boy speedily pushed himself back to his feet as the war droid took it's chance to charge for him. A gash above his eye dripped trickle of blood over his eyebrow, Starkiller could feel his shoulder sting sharply as his twisted it.

He was hurt, this needed to end **now**!

The mechanical stumped faster and closer. Starkiller pushed himself into a dash, his lightsaber jumping to life as he tore for the droid. The durasteel beast continued it's charge as the double cannons underslung it's body began to burn to life. The boy meet it with glare, his hate for the _thing_ fueled his run. Just as the two closed to a few meter part, the beast's cannons ready to scream, the young warrior made his own roar and leaped forward. Crimson blade rang forth, clenched between both hands, Starkiller thrust his saber into the mechanical's photoreceptor. His feet landed him between the dual cannons as the boy twisted his blade about for the kill. Sparks flew from the droid's slashed face and the beast stopped. Suddenly a rush of heat washed over the youth from either side and his ears were assaulted to the point of becoming deaf. Starkiller could only feel the deckplates shake and the hot wind brush by him as two blaster bolts exploded into the floor.

The young warrior ripped his saber from the droid and walked away from the durasteel ruin, not looking back as he sensed the mechanical fell into itself. Dead. Whirling his his blade once or twice, draining himself of last of his adrenaline before extinguishing the red lightsaber and placing it on his belt. A new force ran into Starkiller quite suddenly, dressed in a assistant engineer's uniform with gold curls popping from under her cap. The boy looked down at Kore as she fussed over the small scrap on his forehead, saying something that his ringing ears couldn't pick up. Why did she so seem so upset? Are those tears in her eyes? She hadn't gotten hurt, why was _she_ cry? As the girl engineer settled her tearful face against Starkiller's shoulder -the injured one- he looked up to find PROXY and Inari had joined them too. That annoying Togruta girl had the disgustingly enlightened smirk across her lips as she started to say something.

"-but, of course, you had to wait at the _very_ last moment to take out your lightsaber!" Ah...she was lecturing him. The young warrior's fast-healing Force-sensitive ability had now become a bane, "Next time, you might want to opt-out of the acrobatics show and go straight for the kriffing _laser sword_!"

"Feh...duly noted..." The youth retorted with an edged tone, pulling the other girl off of him. Kore looked up at him with pitiful expression across her face, the feeling of worry and fear for Starkiller's safety pour from her. It was just one announce after another.

"Master..." The boy turned to PROXY as the holodroid approached and gentle prodded his injured shoulder, "I noticed that you were damaged during the fight, Master. I wish I could have joined you."

"I order you to watch those two" Starkiller nodded to the two girls, "and I didn't expect you to do anything else."

"I know, Master. Had the war droid refrained from aimlessly firing it's cannons about, I wouldn't have been occupied with pulling Mistress DaKini and Assistant Engineer Fallow out of it's way."

"Gee...thanks for the sentiment, PROXY..." Inari related in a dull, sarcastic demeanor. Kore was truly genuine, though... ...

"Thank you, PROXY. We would have both died if it hadn't been for you!"

The blond girl smiled, but the droid paid her no mind. PROXY's focus was on his master as Starkiller knew his programing was set on. He was hurt and it was the droid's duty to maintain his health...because only PROXY could be the one that kills the boy. The holodroid took a firm grip of the warrior's shoulder and collar bone, his other cyberonic hand taking his arm. A quick shift, then pop of bone scrapping bone that was followed by _pain_ and PROXY was finished mending the boy. The young warrior gritted his teeth as his shoulder slow throbbed out of it's sting, he would now rely on his skill in the Dark Side to heal himself fully as a Sith _should_ recover. Looking over to the two females, the boy saw one orange face of disgust and another of horror topped with bond curls under cap. It prodded at his curiousity for a moment, though, was quickly replaced by a scowlful hate from the Dark Side of the Force. A better, more Sith-like reaction.

"So, do you think your captain's innocent now?" Starkiller posed to the young engineer as he tested his speedily healing shoulder.

"You...he...I can't say... ..." Kore finally peeped out in reply, the warrior glaring knifes at her.

"Would you lay off her!" The Togruta girl exclaimed, pulling the blond into a protective hold, "You haven't proved anything about this weapons stock and Captain Tuuk."

"A crab droid just suddenly came alive and tried to trample us to death!"

"Even if you had proof, you should have some tact about it..." Inari frowned and threw a cool stare at the boy, a good rival to his blazing scowl. It had even caused him to blink once, out of pure surprise of at her gull.

"Are you trying to tell me that the second we walked into a bay -that only Tuuk could have known about- and discovered it's secert cargo, a giant killing machine that has been deactivated since the Clone Wars just _coincidentally_ reactivate and targeted _us_?"

Starkiller could sense the orange girl's frustration and embarrassment slowly perspire from her feelings, however, the Togruta's pride won dominance over her soul and she stood tall. It was a pride that was close to being as envious to the Sith as the crab droid's emotionless destructive edge. The girl was still annoying, never the less, as was the female engineer in her own way. The boy so wish he could afford killing them -maybe even torture the two for awhile- but the death of a par of young females would only cite the ship's crew against him. That was something Starkiller couldn't deal with, not in the position that he found himself in at the moment.

Stang...the life of a teenage Dark Side assassin was hard.

"So what exactly is the plan now?"

"Feh...isn't it obvious..." The young warrior truly hadn't a plan, but Inari didn't need to know that. Crossing his arms over his chest, the boy waited for the girl to think of the obvious next course of action to take.

"So...you want to tell the crew..." The _crew_? Of course, the crew! They could form a mutiny and depose the Neimoidian slime the _Free Market_ had as a captain.

"It's the logical course of action." Starkiller smugly retorted, making sure his superiority shone in his tone.

"No one would believe that Captain Tuuk would **betray** us!" Kore broke from the Togruta girl's reassuring grip and made a stand of her own to the Sith pupil. He listen with a cock brow, "Everyone of us was someone the captain picked personally to run this ship. All of us were in a bad spot before Captain Tuuk picked us up. We're all a _family_ that the captain trusts with the _Free Market_, the cargo, and his life. And we trust our lives to **him**!"

"If no one belief's as, then we'll take them down _here_" The boy spread his hands and arms out to either side to emphasize the bay they stood in, "We'll just let them decide whether the **dear** captain gave a Womp rat's ass about their _trust_."

* * *

Staring out the forward viewport, the site of a tan colored sphere slowly and surely grew as their beat up smuggler freighter zoom closer. Inside, a horned Jedi girl frowned at the dirtball of a planet and was less than optimistic about it. Drakka Judarrl had traveling with the eccentric spacer -a Cerean she only knew as Rubin- for only a few days now and the young padawan was already questioning if she had made a mistake. Maybe it was the Force trying to tell her something, maybe it was the fact that the smuggler had skip out on paying at the last four refueling stations, but there was this nagging feeling in the back of Drakka's head. Rubin had suggested this backwater world, Tatooine, as the best place to hid from the Empire for the time being. The padawan, though, suspected that the freighter's hold full of spice was the Cerean's real motivation to the dusty-looking planet.

Tatooine...if there's a bright center to the universe, this planet far from it. And according to Rubin, it was the biggest hub of criminal activities -or as the smuggler put it, _ambitious entrepreneurship_- this side of Nar Shaddaa and every Hutt worth his slime was bidding for a piece of the desert's action. The big worm himself, Jabba the Hutt, had Tatooine as the seat of his outlaw empire, just another reason that Imperials never showed up on the planet. Drakka didn't know if she like the idea of dealing with Hutts. Her master's tellings of the Clone Wars painted the Hutts as allies of the Jedi one second and the Separatists the next. They were _ambiguous_, a loyalty that was bought and re-sold to a new higher bidder.

"Your quieter than usual." The Cerean smuggler called from behind Drakka. Twisting around in the copilot seat, the young padawan smiled as Rubin entered the freighter's cockpit.

"How can you be quieter than _quiet_?" She smirked as Rubin plopped down behind the helm controls.

"It's a different kind of quiet than I usually hear from ya'. You're normally like...ahh...Wroshyr tree sapling. Just taking in the universe and waiting to grow up big. Now you're all gloom and worry and even sometimes hateful. It's like that old Drakka's dead or something... ..."

"My, _blunt_ today, aren't we?"

One way or another, the Jedi girl was bombard with the smuggler's attempts to get her to talk about what happen on Lehon. Not the fighting or her running, but what she felt about the whole event. Rubin seem to think himself something of a _therapist_, or maybe the padawan's _big brother_. His heart was in the right place, but Drakka wasn't a kid anymore. She couldn't be, not with what happened to Master Fel'Kona and how the fearful child that she was had ran away. Just ran. If the young Zabrak Jedi wanted her revenge on Vader, then the old Drakka Judarrl had to put to the grave with her master. Her Cerean friend would have to accept and just **fly the damn ship**.

"Well, I guess you can't blame me for not trying..."

Rubin retorted as though he truly was going to let the subject lie. He never did the last thirty times he finished conversion with thus, the young padawan doubted he would this time. Drakka kept up the silence as the smuggler piloted the ancient freighter through the atmosphere, complying with the Mos Espa flight traffic controller's directions. The black of space's void dissolved into the pinks of a Tatooine twilight, either a coming dawn or dusk for the desert world. From the cockpit, the girl caught sight of spaceport city and her many domed buildings tinted tan. At their altitude, Drakka could see past Mos Espa's limits and to the endless dunes beyond. It so look as though this one spaceport was the only scrap of civilization on the whole of the planet, if one could call a den of thiefs, swindlers, and pirates civilized.

The old transport rattled and hissed steamed as it settled on it's dampers, taking up much of Docking Bay 108. The Cerean smuggler had opted for one the cheaper hangers, nothing more than re-purposed residential building with a retractable roof. As the Jedi girl pulled herself out the of the freighter's small hatch that Rubin called an exit, she noted the destitute nature of their affordable docking bay. It was far from the landing platforms and hangers at Almas Academy that Drakka remembered, with everything a mechanic dreamed of at night. She doubt that this place even had locks on the doors. Though, the padawan knew she shouldn't complain as she hadn't spend a single credit on the place. She didn't have a single credit to spend at all, the girl was bumming the whole ride and relying on her friendship with the Cerean smuggler to keep her traveling.

"Ok!" Rubin gleefully barked as he jumped out of the hatch, rushing past the young padawan to any open space. Throwing his arms out and twisting his torso around, Rubin began to stretch the long trip from this bones, to which replied with cracks and pops with most of his movements. He ended his display and took in a deep breath, "**Yeah**! Do you smell that? It's the smell of a Tatooine morning! It's fame and fortune right in the air! A scent that should be bottle so that the finer folks can enjoy and waste their money on it!"

"All I can smell is starship fuel, dry air, and bad spice." The girl retorted with a frown, covering her nose with both her hands.

"Yeah! It smells exactly like _fame_ and _fortune_!"

The smuggler laughed and Drakka just shook her head. Rubin dug his hand into his breast pocket to retrieve his comlink and quick proceeded with whatever deal had really brought the pair to Tatooine's Mos Espa. The young padawan was never totally privy to the Cerean's plans and she was fine with that. She didn't want to get involved in smuggling or any felony, even if it was the Empire enforcing the law. Drakka had to admit, though, that simply being a Jedi made her a criminal to the Empire. One they'd send Vader to hunt down and murder. She would need to become stronger before that fateful day came... ...

"Right, I'll see you there." Rubin finished his talks and turned off his com, replacing it into his pocket and addressed the Jedi girl, "Sorry, Drakka, but your going have to entertain yourself for awhile. My..._associates_ down trust me with the extract company."

"I know the drill."

"I wish I had the time to take you around and show you the better parts of Mos Espa" The Cerean smuggler relied, though Drakka doubted if the spaceport had _better parts_ to show. Rubin gave the girl a hand full of credits -small domainions, high spenders attract pick-pockets and con artists- along with apologetic half-grin, "This port has it's reputation, so try not to get into terrible, ok?"

"I should be saying that to you!" The girl snickered with a forced smirk. She hated for Rubin to worry.

The dusty streets of Mos Espa were equally as dull looking as the planet had first appeared. Yes, there were normal motley crew of different alien species, but nothing so exotic to install wonder in the padawan. She had rode this pony ride already on number of different Out Rim spots, there wasn't much here she hadn't see. The best that Drakka could hope for was to find a decent place to eat and wait for Rubin to com her to say they'd be going. The street she was on now didn't hold anything promising, so the girl turned down the next junction she came across.

The twin suns had finally made it up above the roof-tops, raining down heat on the Zabrak girl and her fellow of the pedestrians. Drakka loved sunny weather, but dual suns were even too much for her. The bomber jacket she opted instead of her Jedi robes was too much, it's cheap banatha-hide pulled in more sunlight in than the young Jedi could handle. She removed the coat, letting her bare shoulders and blue green tube-top breathe. The young Jedi melted easily into the crowd with her dress and her Zabrak heritage, just another face in the mix. It was somewhat saddening that she could so easily change her identity with a change of clothes where so many other Jedi were doomed to keep to the shadows and avoid face to face contact. The benefits of being a nobody padawan, though Drakka would fight keep her Jedi ways alive. The girl's lightsaber was hiding from sight in her trousers, but not from grasp if push came to shove and hands came to blasters.

The _Search for Breakfast_ seemed like a lost cause until Drakka came across a tiny pastry shop that didn't seem to fit with the rest of the storefronts. It seemed busy, an added plus for the scouting tourists looking for a good buy and a outlaw wanting to hid in the crowd. The young padawan smiled to herself and decided that is was a good a place as any and walked in. The world changed dramatically as Drakka past threshold, moving from shades of tan and hot to dark browns and cool. The shops interior was layed with wood -a pricy touch in a desert- and the air was moist and just a few degrees blow room temperture. It was a pleasant change for the girl from the sweat she had outside. The room had number of tables with chairs scattered around, most of them full of patrons, and a counter near the back. The scent of baking cakes and cookies prompt a grumble from Drakka's empty stomach. She quickly inhauled a calming breath, then took controlled her desire for food, as she was taught, and her hungry subsided.

_A Jedi mustn't let her body command her_, The padawan recited in her thoughts.

The pastry shop had a reasonable long line leading to the counter, one that Drakka resolved her to wait in. And it was a _wait_. The young padawan amused herself by study the various doings of the other patrons. A few seemed to be merchants talking about some new produce they were selling or arrange a business deal of some kind. Drakka giggled to herself at the thought of Rubin and his smuggler _associates_ talking over their spice deals here at a pastry shop. A few other customers look to be farmers of some sorta or another and their families, dressed in what could only called their very best dress. Perhaps worshippers of local deity grabbing breakfast after services. It was amazing to the Jedi girl that even with the knowledge of the Force that explained away gods and spirits, people still choose superstitions over fact.

The majority of the patrons sitting down seemed to be watch viewscreens situated on each table. From her place in the line, Drakka could not see what was being watched on the screens, but she could see the everyone's faces. They eyes followed whatever was going on with tense stares, not a pixel overlooked on their screens. It was a wonder that they could get their food and hot caf to their mouths with all their attention spend on the viewscreens.

Just as Drakka reached her turn to counter, the whole shop came alive with shouts and cheers. Some the patrons who were siting jumped from their chairs, others whistled if they had the lips to do so. Even the cashier behind the counter rushed over to one of the tables and checked a viewscreen. Whatever had just happen, it made everyone excited beyond belief! The padawan blinked thoughtfully as she pondered as to what had been going on. Were they all shock brokers watching the Imperial GDP zoom up? It made no sense to Drakka, so of course when the cashier returned behind the counter she asked... ...

"What's all the cheers about? It's sounds important to everyone."

"You don't...know?" The cashier blinked at the Jedi girl, perplexed, "Hey guys! She doesn't KNOW!"

The room fell silent as all eyes moved to Drakka. Some left the shop in a haste, but everyone **stared**. Some of them glared at the padawan while other simply gawked at her. What had she gotten herself into? Were they going to maul her to death now or ship her off to the nearest Imperial garrison. The Zabrak girl swollowed the lump in the back of her throat and waited. Her hand slipped to closer to her lightsaber. She would let herself die her without fight, without ever facing Vader again. If Drakka was forced to use her saber, however, then there would only be a small amount time for her to get back the docking bay and fly off world before some one contacted the authorities.

Damnit, all she wanted was a Cheffa cake for breakfast... ...

"*Sigh*...Really, you guys?" The voice proclaimed from behind Drakka and the girl turned to find the owner in the doorway. It was a dusty boy, human and in his mid-teens, with dramatic spiky blond hair, long sleeves and sporting a pair of brown leather gloves. All attention quickly shifted to him as few beings gasped. The boy's playful smirk was framed by a strong chin and his grey eyes scanned about the room, looking to each patron, "I wish you could see yourselves right now. If I didn't know better, I'd swear you were about to _linch_ the poor girl."

As the dusty boy slowly walked through the shop, patrons scattered out of his way. This boy held some sort of command of the bunch that would put Jedi Master to shame. Stopping near the padawan, he glanced at her and then turned in a mock glare at the patrons as crossed his arms. He spoke in mostly friendly tone, with nature command protecting from his voice. A born leader, as it were... ...

"Is this how we treat outsiders, guys? _We're_ the outsiders! We didn't throw people out because they didn't know about **Stadium**. Just tell them to hit the road, huh? No. There wouldn't be one person in this room today if that was the fact. And now look at us. Have we've sink so low that we'd scare this poor girl just because she asked a simple question?"

A few of the patrons started laugh, the rest just grinned at what Drakka could only guessed was some private joke. The room's tension melted away as everyone returned there gaze back to the viewscreens and the Jedi girl breathed a silent sigh, her safety secured. For the moment, at least. The blond boy nodded with his own grin dancing across his face, an array of white teeth shone, as he turned to the clerk behind the counter and raised two his fingers at him. The clerk smirked and nodded back, their silent dialog was all that was needed, and retreating back to a rear conjoining room. A kitchen was what Drakka had surmised, the sweet smells and the sounds of cookwares scrapping together made it a safe bet. Soon the clerk return -who appeared to be the shop's baker as well- a tray between his hands with to round piles of dough atop of it. The dusty boy took it from him with a smile and looked back to the padawan.

"Sorry about that." The blond apologized, "Everyone here just expects to be in the know about Stadium. Nobody really comes hear just because the caf and doughnuts."

"It's no problem." Drakka replied as she followed the boy to one of the few empty tables. Was it empty a second ago? Or had the patrons move as soon as they say the blond human coming? She pretend not to notice, "This is my first time on Tatooine. First time in the sector! I guess I wouldn't have a good lay of the land yet."

"Yeah...it could have been worst, really." The two sat down and the boy pushed the tray to her, "Swoop gangs' territories, spice dens, and cantinas full of drunks...even at this hour...there's a lot'a worst places to walk into."

Nodding in reply, the Jedi girl smiled politely as she inspected round mass of dough that the blond had ordered for her. It was rather plan appearing and looked almost as though it wasn't cooked, just raw dough...that wasn't exactly pleasant sounding. She glanced up at the boy, seeing that he was focusing his attentions on the table's viewscreen, much like other patrons had and were back too. Would it be rude to ask if the dish was edible, or should she trust her luck? Seeing how Drakka's fortunes had all but hit rock bottom -running from the Empire, hitching a spice smuggler as traveling companion, Master Fel'Kona being murder- the padawan didn't want to think about her _luck_. The girl's gut sunk as she poked at her dough with a fork thoughtfully. Her master was dead. He was gone and was never going to return to Drakka, never going to help her again in life. Vader had erased another noble Jedi Master from universe...but the girl promised that it was going happen again. She would hunt down and kill every Sith in the galaxy, just as they had chased down and slaughtered her kind. Drakka sliced the prongs of her fork through the dough to the plate underneath, like a lightsaber burning through a man's chest. That **man**... ...

"Wow..." The padawan blinked and looked up at the dusty boy as he held a eyebrow up at the skewered dough, "If I'd know you weren't keen on pallie luck-cakes, I'd had ordered you something else. Sorry."

"_Luck-cake_?" Drakka studied the dough mass, hemorrhaging light green juice where the fork pierced it, "No, no. I just lost my appetite... ..."

"Did these bunch of koochoos freak you out?" He sent a glare across the room to the other patrons. A few visible flinched.

"No! It's not that at all. I've just...had a lot happen to me lately and it's hard to get it behind me and move on."

"Well, that's Tatooine for ya'. We import misery from the five corners of the galaxy! That's why we have to distract ourselves with sabacc games and Stadium."

"Right...and what was _Stadium_, again?"

Drakka smirked, sparking a snickered from the blond in light of the recent accident with her last inquiry. The dusty boy twisted his viewscreen about, facing it towards the padawan so see could what it was broadcasting. The picture showed small, roundish craft -like a one seated speeder- being pulling along by two cables attached to pair of giant engines with flames erupting from the back of them. A podracer. Drakka had heard of podracing before, a deadly sport of skill and daring, especially popular in less-developed planets and with gambling species. The girl had always been told at the Academy that it was life-threatening endeavor for pointless rewards and unnecessary levels of fame. Of course, Drakka could never imagine a Jedi being very dandy with gambling money or lives...and podraces dealt with both.

"Podracing" the Jedi girl answered the blond plainly, "I saw one before, during their height. Is this some kind of gambling establishment?" The dusty boy stared at Drakka as though she had commented on how unlike Crystan cheese the podracer was.

"You...You _really_ don't get it!" The padawan blinked, flustering at his reply. Well, of course, she didn't get it! What was **IT**? The blond recovered from this stupor and managed an apologetic smile, "Podracing is illegal, even here on Tatooine. The last remnant of the Old Republic..."

_That and the being in front of you_, Drakka thought as she stifled a snicker.

"Technically, there isn't anymore podracing in the galaxy. No tracks, no sponsors, no gambling dens...at least geared to that sport. Even the Hutts washed their hands of it, shifting their slimy mitts onto swoop races and the likes. So, you can only imagine the situation for former podracer pilots. All this hardware, the engines, repulsors, and the mechanics and parts to service them. Everything to race, just no where to do it." The blond looked down at his cake and cut off a piece it with his fork. Juices poured over the fork and across his plate, the site reflected in his grey eyes...no, not grey. The dusty boys eyes seemed to have changed from the color the padawan had first notice to a pale lime green. Was that normal for humans? He suddenly looked back up and caught Jedi girl gazing, prompting Drakka to automatically turn her head to another table of patrons, her face feeling little hotter, "Nobody knowns who was the first one to start it and break the law, but soon the old pilots where zooming around again. Stadium was born."

"So it's just illegal podracing." The padawan studied the dusty boy from the side of her eye, not daring another accident with is eyes.

"Not quite." Plopping a piece of cake into his mouth, the blond pulled his lips up into a smirk -was it just Drakka or was somebody raising the rooms temperature every time the dusty boy smirked? With a lighthearted snicker he added, "No track, just a finish line...placed somewhere on the planet."

"Somewhere...so it _changes_?"

"Yeah. Right before the race starts, the finish line's announced to everyone. It can be a few kilometers from the beginning point or on the other side of the planet! One time it was in the set in the Jundland Wastes, right in the middle of Tusken country. Ahh...those Sand People sure do like to shoot up pod engines. That's why it's called _Stadium_, the whole world is in bounds so the planetoid is like a giant stadium to race through."

Drakka watched from the corner of her eye as waves of enthusiasm and pure glee sailed from the boy through the Force. She had never before met anyone so passionate about simple sport, no matter it's popularity. He seemed to live for it, from the small glimpses she felt from the blond. Drinking, eating, and sleeping this Stadium business and still not getting enough. It was oddly attracting to Drakka, though she didn't quiet know what to make of it.

Was this what an attachment was like? A single focus in one's life that went above everything else, no matter what the priorities were. That didn't make any sense. The padawan's Jedi training was very same sole purpose in living that totally absorbed all of her focus. It couldn't be one the attachments her master had always taught her to avoid...could it? There was some spark in the blond's eye that told Drakka that what she felt from him was far from the sins of the Dark Side. It was pure, like the deep white of the dusty boy's teeth she saw in his grin as he lead over to watch the race on the viewscreen. His face was _very_ close.

"YEAH!" The dusty boy's scream tore Drakka's attentions back to reality to finding the blond gazing at the viewscreen again. The same podracer they had been watching was now zooming parallel with a second pod, green with white racing lines, "Come on! COME ON! Push pass the sleemo and GO!"

The whole shop was in starting to get into a roar as they watched their screens with a renewed vigor. Some were cursing at their viewscreens, hoping to damn the new racer through some mystical process, while many were chanting 'Go, Go' along with the boy. Drakka watched as pods knifed along the edge of a cliff prevented either craft to pull around the other from one direction, while a gaping chasm dropping below screen barred trying so on the opposite side. The green pod found itself following the other, with no direct way around the leading racer. It was interesting to watch...what little the Jedi girl was watching. The blond, so near to her now, was much more of interest to her. Those ever changing iris of his had now turned a blue, with hints of yellow in it. Drakka stole the shortest of glance at the boy, staring at his lips as they smiled at the screen. Oh...if she was only a viewscreen... ...

Suddenly, the pictures on the _true_ viewscreen shifted, attaching Drakka site long enough to see what was happening. The green pod had hint it's brakes and pulled further behind, giving his opponent a firm lead. Patrons across the shop bawled and swore at their viewscreens, but to no avail as the other pod moved farther and farther ahead. However, as soon as green podracer had dropped back a twenty meters it seemed to have found a second wind. It's afterburners shot twin ember jets from engines and the craft rocketed head on towards the lead pod. The Jedi girl blinked, thinking that green pod was going to crash straight into the other racer, but the green pod made a sharp turn towards cliff. Hitting a less steep part of the wall, repulors pushing on rock, the pod twisted almost vertical and zoomed right over the other pod, making a mini barrel-roll, and landing rightly near the edge of the chasm. With another burst from the afterburners, the green pod screamed into the lead, with the whole pastry screaming with it.

"Woow! Go baby, GO!" The boy yelled along with the others, "The **Hornet** strikes back! Blowing past that trash like it wasn't even there!"

"So did he win?" The padawan asked at a heightened volume, barely hearing her own voice over the roars.

"_She_ hasn't, no. Not yet. But she's damn close!"

The blond shone a toothy grinned at Drakka and gave her a wink before grabbing up his cake and took a bite that nearly halved the pastry. On the Jedi's rational, more coherent thinking side, the dusty boy's wink was interpreted as friendly and somewhat assertive gesture that he probably didn't give a second thought too. However, the side of her that in every way thought and felt like a normal teenage girl found the wink from a rather appealing male to be saying a lot more. Instead of _friendly_ it was much closer to _attracted_, and instead of _assertive_ it was _interested_. The young padawan's heart pumped harder as blood pushed up into her cheeks, making them hotter. Should a Jedi blush? Right now, Drakka didn't care as she gazed at the boy as he continued watching the race. Suddenly the blond frowned, holding up his arm and revealing a chrono on his wrist.

"Frak..." He mouthed, possibly even whispered considering the volume of the room. The boy looked back up to her with a apologetic smile, "I'm sorry. I got to get back to my dad's service station."

"Oh...I-It's ok. I should probably finish up myself and get back to my ship." The Jedi girl forced herself to smile and tried to be polite about the situation, though she wanted to whine and make him stay a little longer. Every was happening too quickly for her and she was just getting to enjoy herself here. Though, the last thing she wanted was to make a scene, "I hope you get to see the rest of the race...and that this Hornet person you like wins!"

"Ha, don't worry about her. She'll win." The blond smirked and Drakka _knew_ she was going to melt, "If you every find some time to kill, come over to Tosche Station. Tell the man at the counter that **Jazon Tosche** knows ya'." The dusty boy prodded his thumb towards himself, indicating that he was this _Jazon Tosche_, before standing up.

"My name's Drakka Judarrl!"

The padawan said it quickly, feeling like an idiot before she even finished the first syllable. She felt, though, like Jazon would forget she even existed if she didn't tell him her name before he left. She only then thought that it might have been prudent to say some false identity just in case. Drakka couldn't think straight round this dusty boy, but it seemed worth the risk of discovery to be near him. Jazon nodded and smiled, then slayed her with another wink just before turning and rushing to the door. He reached the exit too fast and was gone from Jedi girl's site. She grinned in the afterglow of her stirred feelings, falling back into her chair. After all the death that had happened in her life, Drakka was alive again from a few minutes with relatively average boy from Tatooine. Resurrection with a wink, too dramatic for a warrior monk...and too romantic for a Jedi.

_Well, it was a fun distraction at least_, The padawan thought to herself as she smiled sadly at her cake, the one Jazon had bought her. _Rubin should be getting done soon and we'll be gone within the next few hours... ..._

Drakka pulled her in-lodged fork from the cake and started eating. It was good.

* * *

The _Free Market's_ mess hall was filled to capacity with her motley crew of humanoids, many of whom the species Inari couldn't identify. Kore had passed the word to her crewmates that an assembly was going to held and that Captain Tuuk wasn't going to be in attendance. Soon, the young Togruta found Starkiller, PROXY, the young engineer, and herself surrounded by the cargo freighter's crew, about to reveal to them the secret Tuuk had kept from them. She wonder if any of them could imagine that that had been the reason for their hush-hush meet in the mess. Did they believe it was all a giant get-together to plan some sort of party for their captain? Could the _Free Market's_ crew even conceive of betraying there beloved Captain Tuuk, or was mutiny against the Neimoidian as foreign a thought as sailing across an ocean of fire? The orange girl bit her lip and stiffened her stance as she saw Starkiller take a step forward... ...

"Somebody on this ship as betrayed you..." The young warrior proclaimed in a booming whisper. As quiet as his voice was, it over came any small conversations and gossip in the mess, pulling everyone's attentions towards the boy as he repeated himself, "Somebody on this ship as betrayed you. On this ship, in a cargo bay marked as _trash_, a whole mechanical legion was hidden."

"A mess a battle droids?" Cried a crewmen, his identity lost in the sea of alien faces. A dozen hushed voices started up in the crowd, speaking their own opinions and thoughts on just who could behind the droid smuggling. Most, though, waited in silence to hear rest of Starkiller had to say... ...

"There are droids, tanks, munitions...everything needed to start attacking planetary targets. Enough to start a new **Clone War**." A chill ran through the room, visibly felt by everyone. She didn't know if the young Sith had intended to use those words or it had just being the best example of galactic turmoil in most beings' recent memory. Inari didn't remember much from the Clone Wars seven years passed, but what she did remember was the fear of being attacked. Of _invasion_. It didn't matter if it was from the Separatists or the Republic, war was **war**. Every sentient in the galaxy was on the knife's edge, waiting for the conflict to one day come to their homeworld and their lives to be destroyed. Starkiller ended right to the point, "Susumu Tuuk has betrayed you and your Empire to the Separatist Remnant."

"Your a _liar_!"

"How **dare** you even think that of the captain!"

"Lil' good-for-nothin'...!"

A tall, burly Aqualish pushed through the crowd with distasteful look across he's face and a determined look in his black, shiny eyes. Kore move in front of Starkiller and try to beseech her fell crewmate to stop, only to pushed aside and fall on her backside quite roughly. The Togruta girl hurried over to the young engineer and knelt beside her as the younger female rubbed the spot where her back hit the deck. Hearing a grumbled voice directed towards her, the girl looked up to find Aqualish pointing at Kore and addressing the other girl in his native tongue. Inari's Aqualish was a little limited, though she pieced together something along the lines of '_This isn't a matter for you, __**boy**__! Stay to the side if you want to live!_'

"No, please!" Kore pleaded in her deepen male's voice. She seemed to have all the crew fooled as to her true nature, "Don't do it, Olao!"

'_He knows no respect!_' Olao grunted in Aqualish before charging for Starkiller.

The young warrior stood stark still, barely glance to the Goliath alien as he barreled toward the boy. Throwing his elbow back, Olao thrust a massive fist of five _really _big fingers forward, straight for Starkiller's head. There was blur and suddenly the Aqualish was on his knees with his giant fist pulled behind his back by somewhat bored looking Starkiller. The Togruta girl let out a small sigh of relief as she saw that the boy had everything under his control, as usual. Should Inari had expected anything less? All of Kore's screaming had actually made her worried that the pupil of Darth Vader was some _really_ danger. He had just thrashed a gargantuan war droid singlehandedly, a fist fight wouldn't cause him any terrible.

"This isn't about my opinion" Starkiller proclaimed, looking over top of the Aqualish to the crew. In truth, they could probably only see the boy's glaring eyes from behind the mass of muscle that was Olao...though catching the young warrior's fierce stare would be enough, "This is about the truth. Susumu Tuuk is a _Separatist_ and is transporting an army for war."

_'It's a lie-ARRUGH!'_ The large Aqualish seemed to have grunted out before the Sith pulled his arm up into a sharper, more painful angle and quieted the alien.

"I don't have time for your misplaced loyalty." The boy related with his usually impatience tone. The Togruta girl pulled Kore up from the floor and they both moved meter away from Starkiller as he continued addressing the crowd, "Tuuk's friends will be coming sometime and we can't just wait for Imperial partol to coming in time...well have to **fight**!"

The crew looked to one another, many with their mouth agape in disbelief. Their worst fear -as with anyone traveling aboard star vessel- was to be boarded by a hostile party in middle of space. It wasn't as much the close quarters fighting, but the effects of it on the ship's hull. A breach a meter or larger could suck more than a dozen beings out into space in seconds. The Force fields and automatic doors meant to seal such breaches were a slim comfort on a vessel suffering from battle-induced power failures. Inari had heard of some ship's surrendering to pirates by the mere threat of being boarded with explosions and blasters flaring. She could even hear the whispers amongst the crowd about the very same incident...

"Remember the _Organa's_ _Dream_?" They said in hussed voices, "Yeah! Gave up without a shoot fired and the _half_ crew still got thrown out of an airlock!"

"Separatists would be worst then pirates" Another conversation in whispers catching Inari's ear said, "Pirates take hostages. Seps will go for the cargo, blow the ship, and space the _whole_ of us!"

The aspirations of the crew were of full of dread and worry, the Togruta girl could relate. Her first week out in the galaxy and she was about to be in an attack by an clandestine group of bygone era. Inari turned to the young engineer beside her, looking gripped in turmoil of emotions as she picked about the ends of her grey coverall arms. Kore was just as dedicated to the _Free Market_ and Captain Tuuk as the rest of crew -maybe more so. However, she'd seen the cargo bay full of battle droids and weapons that only the captain had access to. She was almost killed by the same crab droid that attacked Inari and Stakiller, no doubtingly programmed to dispose of any curious crewmen that made in to the bay. Kore's feelings for the young warrior were probably also eating away at her, too. They were quite obvious to Inari.

The young orange girl sighed as the crew continued debate between themselves. Starkiller seemed to be waiting for their answer, whether it was to go down to the cargo bay or take the four trouble makers to the captain. Olao huge form was still held in placed by the painful armlock the boy had on him and he grunted with expiration. Keeping the big alien's limb at that angle might actually cause some real damage to the being. Of course...Inari wasn't a medical genius or anything, and you couldn't tell what stresses some species could take. And of course Starkiller wouldn't care. He might even enjoy breaking the Aqualish's arm!

Inari's attentions soon moved to PROXY, the quiet holodroid to the left of the young warrior. He was survey the crowd with a careful photoreceptor, thoughtfully studying each crewmen. As the Togruta girl watched, she noticed that PROXY would start to emulate the being he was watching in perfect matching gestures and poise of the sentient. Was that holodroid thing? New data to better appear more like an organic, perhaps. PROXY turned to a different being and was soon mimicking an Utai crewmen using wild arm motions as he talked, the droid copying every gesticulation. Had the situations had not been so grim, Inari would have giggled.

"So what do you say...?" The young Sith finally posed, sick of waiting, "Let's go down to the cargo hold and see the proof...then meet with Tuuk-"

"_I_ would like to speak first" A voice called over the crowd suddenly, interrupting Starkiller speech. The crowd of crewmen pulled apart, leaving a single individual standing tall to face Inari and the other's at the mess' center. The Neimoidian frowned, "I believe as captain, I can be give such a respect."

The room was speechless. Starkillered scowled at new arrive as Kore fliniched at his every move. PROXY began to copy his tiniest gestures as he walked towards them and Inari... ...

And Inari just watched, helplessly, as Captain Tuuk moved to the center of the mess hall.

* * *

Author's Note: More shall come...if you're patient. Reviews do encourage me to write more, criticism the more so...well, constructive criticism. Don't just tell me that you hate some character, but tell me why. Maybe the canon character are too OOC, maybe I have some bit of canon wrong. My plot's slow, the scenes aren't explained in depth, this is what helps me write better.

Until next time!


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